


Make Up Everything And Wake Up Breathing

by killingmonsterswritingthings



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, Multi, Nonbinary Character, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, POV Alternating, Post-Episode 11
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-24
Updated: 2017-03-05
Packaged: 2018-07-18 00:44:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 27,657
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7292668
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/killingmonsterswritingthings/pseuds/killingmonsterswritingthings
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After being flung out of the corrupted wormhole, Pidge and Shiro find themselves back on Earth and need to find a way to convince the Garrison that they aren't a threat. Without a way to contact the other paladins, they're left to worry about the fates of their friends.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> hi friends!
> 
> i can't believe i'm starting another multichapter fic but here we are. i just kept writing this tbh so you know, gotta let my brain do its thing.
> 
> there's not a lot to say tbh except that i'll be adding tags as i go because i'm much more a gardener than an architect. also pidge will be referred to by both they and she pronouns in this fic but i hope it won't be too hard to follow. aaaand this is gonna be an eventual paladin ot5 because i'm all about writing poly tbh.

Pidge woke with a groan.

It took them a moment to orient themselves, the cockpit of the Green Lion looming and buzzing around them, until they got their hands underneath them and sat up. Their head was throbbing.

Their hand flew up to their temple and came away with blood. “Shit.” Somehow their helmet must have come off.

There was a crackling noise.

“Pidge?”

Pidge scrambled to get up towards the comms. “Shiro?” they asked, hopeful.

“Oh god, good, you're there.”

It felt so good to hear his voice.

“What happened?” Pidge groaned, leaning close to the speakers because the buzzing and crackling wouldn't stop. There had to be something wrong with the lion. Or something was wrong with them.

A moment of static, then: “The wormhole got corrupted and we all got separated. We crash landed... somewhere.”

“Damn...” Pidge tried to get upright. “Uh, are your comms fucked too or is that my head?”

“What's wrong with your head?” Shiro asked, concern obvious in his unclear voice. Of course he didn't answer the question.

“I must've hit it when we went down and I'm bleeding,” Pidge said. “But there's also definitely something wrong with my lion.”

“What happened to your helmet?” Shiro asked immediately. “Hold on... Yeah, okay, I can see you. I'm going to leave my lion and come over there.”

“Does this shitty planet have an atmosphere?” Pidge asked. They tried to find information in the flashing on their interfaces but could only see warnings about some malfunction or another. Great.

“Lion says it does.”

“Cool, mine's not giving me anything. I'm coming out too, it smells like something's burning in here.”

Thankfully the lion at least still seemed to be be to hear them and opened his mouth on his own so Pidge didn't have to grab at the controls. When they stumbled out onto the surface of the planet they were met with sand and the sudden difference made them loose their footing and fall to their knees.

“Pidge!”

They looked up towards where Shiro was sprinting in their direction, which forced them to squint against a harsh sun. Shiro went to his knees next to them when he reached them.

“That's a lot of blood...”

“Headwound,” Pidge mumbled, “they tend to bleed a lot.”

“Have you heard of concussion protocols because I'm pretty big on those.” Shiro was already brushing Pidge's hair aside so he could get a better look at the wound.

Pidge groaned again. “I don't think these apply here.”

“They _definitely_ apply here,” Shiro insisted. “We need to stop the bleeding.”

“Last time I checked the lions didn't have first aid kits.”

“A grave oversight.”

“I guess,” Pidge shrugged and winced. “But we definitely have nothing to wrap around my head, anyway.”

“Are you dizzy?” Shiro asked while he got to his feet and started shimmying out of the armored parts of his suit.

Pidge squinted up at him and tried to assess the situation in their head while also wondering what Shiro was up to now. “Uh, a little... What are you doing?”

“Improvising a bandage,” Shiro said, shedding his arm protectors. He then started tugging at the thin suit he was wearing underneath and finally Pidge understood.

“Those are basically indestructible though.” They motioned at their own suit that had barely gotten a scratch.

Shiro ripped his sleeve off of his left arm with the alien prosthetic of his other. “You were saying?”

“That's cheating...” Pidge had to lower their gaze because the sun was blinding them and making their head hurt even more. “Where are we?”

There was another loud ripping sound as Shiro tore the fabric from his sleeve into several strips.

“Good question,” he said and started wiping away the blood from Pidge's head now. “Somewhere on a beach.”

Pidge winced and tried to shy away from Shiro's motions but Shiro held their head in place with his left. “A beach?” they echoed.

“Yeah, your lion is facing inland but there's water behind y- _Don't move_!”

Pidge yelped. They had tried to turn to look behind them and Shiro had automatically loosened his grip on the back of their head, which in turn had made the fabric scrape over Pidge's wound.

“Sorry,” they both said at the same time.

“Just keep still, okay? I'm almost done.”

“Ugh, fine,” Pidge said, whose head was now spinning.

Shiro seemed to have cleaned the wound provisionally to his satisfaction after another few seconds and started wrapping the other strips of fabric around Pidge's head. It was tight and uncomfortable, but at least it kind of focused them.

“Alright, all done. How are you feeling?” Shiro straightened up, wiping sand from his knees and extending a hand towards Pidge to help them up.

“Okay, I guess,” Pidge said and let him pull them up. “Dizzy. Kind of nauseous. Also where the hell are we?”

Shiro looked behind them with a weird expression on his face. “Earth,” he said.

Pidge spun around a little too quickly, a little too shocked, and their vision blacked out for a moment, making them stumble against Shiro. He immediately extended his arm to catch them, space metal cool against their body.

“Wow, steady.”

When Pidge's vision cleared, there was nothing there.

“I'm okay,” they said, but it didn't sound convincing even to their own ears. “Uh, how do you know we're on earth? I can only see beach and like... mountains.”

Shiro sighed. “I know where we are though. Hawaii. I think this is Kahoʻolawe but I've only been here once.“

“Is that one of the inhabited islands?” Pidge asked, not sure if they should hope for civilization or solitude.

Shiro frowned down at them. “No...”

There was a few beats of silence before it finally it sunk in for Pidge. “Shit, we're on _earth_? Oh no... Shiro we need to get back, we need to get out of here. The Garrison probably knows we're here and they're gonna come and arrest us. We don't have time for this.”

“You don't need to tell me. But the lions are out of commission for at least a day and I couldn't reach any of the others.”

“Are you _kidding_? How? I thought they were basically _indestructible_!” Shiro leveled them with a confused stare for a minute before Pidge sighed. “Yeah, I guess that wasn't a smart assumption, me being a computer engineer and all but honestly, none of them have ever actually gotten hurt.”

“Times like this make me happy they're partially sentient,” Shiro confessed, walking a little closer to the waves. “At least we know they can _heal_.”

“Do we?” Pidge asked. “Because Green isn't talking to me...”

“Black says so,” Shiro offered. “But that's definitely worrying. Could be your head or something being wrong with the lion. I can't tell.”

“Yeah, me either,” Pidge said. “Can we do anything to speed up the repair? I mean they're robots, we have to be able to do something.”

Shiro looked at them and shook his head. “No, you need to rest.”

Pidge stomped their foot on the sand. “We're on EARTH. The Garrison probably spotted us on their radar the moment we went into the atmosphere. They're going to be here any minute.”

“You don't have to tell me.” Shiro sighed. “But there's nothing we can do. We could try to hide somewhere on the island but the lions are a pretty big giveaway and even with the shields the Garrison could still move them. It's probably better if we wait for the inevitable patrol here and try to... explain.”

“Are you _insane_?” Pidge had a hand pressed to their head because it had started throbbing again. “They're going to arrest us for, I don't know, disobeying orders, kidnapping – you, who by the way was supposed to be put under quarantine because you just fell back out of the sky after a year! – and like leaving the planet without permission or something!”

“I didn't say it was a good idea, it's just that there's nothing else we can right now. We can't hail the castle and we can't pilot the lions. And you need medical attention.”

Pidge glowered at him and ground their teeth but finally relented. “Fine.”

Shiro made a show of sitting down in the sand close to the waterline and after a few seconds Pidge sat down next to him.

“Maybe we'll get some earth food. Burgers. We can make Hunk jealous,” Shiro offered after they had just been looking at the ocean in silence for a moment.

“I doubt prison sludge is better than food goo,” Pidge mumbled grumpily.

Shiro laughed. “The worst they can do is give us Garrison cafeteria food.”

“Okay, that's fair,” Pidge said and they could feel the corners of their mouth quirk up.

“Do they still make those awful mashed potatoes?” Shiro asked.

“God, yeah,” Pidge groaned. “I bet those violate like three health code regulations.”

 

 

 

The Garrison patrol shuttles arrived about two hours later.

Shiro stood up when he spotted the first movement on the horizon where dark clouds had started to gather. “Here they come,” he said.

“Why didn't they just send one?” Pidge wondered. “We're only two people...”

“I'd figure they based the number of men they sent on the size of the lions and well, they're pretty big.”

“Yeah, okay, that makes sense,” Pidge said and got to their feet too. “On a scale of one to ten, how angry do you think they are?” The Garrison ships where taking shape against the ocean, gliding a few meters above the water.

“Solid seven,” Shiro said, “about to be an eight when they discover who we are.”

“Aw, shit,” Pidge made heartily.

They had a million other things to say but kept their mouth shut, watching the approach of the Garrison standing next to Shiro with their arms crossed in quiet solidarity.

 

The three shuttles landed a bit away from the lions, stirring up the white sand of the beach.

When the ship doors opened, Shiro and Pidge saw themselves greeted by ten officers and their guns marching towards them.

“Who are you? Where do you come from?”

Shiro held up his hands to show that he was unarmed. “I'm exploration pilot Takashi Shirogane. This is Pidge Gunderson. We're humans.”

The officer closest to them lowered their weapon. “Shiro?”

“Sven?!” Shiro's eyebrows shot up.

“What the fuck is going on here?” the officer – Sven – wanted to know. “What are those _robot_ _lions_?”

“It's a long story,” Shiro said, “I'm happy to explain it to you, but it would take some time-”

“Follow protocol,” one of the others barked, “they could be aliens in disguise or brainwashed. You can't trust either of them.”

Pidge bit their tongue to keep themselves from saying anything and stood firmly next to Shiro even though they felt like hiding behind him.

“We're going to comply with everything you say,” Shiro said.

Pidge wanted to do no such thing – even though they saw the necessity of it, the hostile reaction of the Garrison officers made them angry. One of them had recognized Shiro and they were both clearly human but still none of them except Sven had lowered their weapons. Pidge had never been a big supporter of the shoot first, ask questions later approach. Their entire life was built on intel and information.

“We will cuff you and transport you back to Garrison headquarters,” the same officer as before said.

“Pidge needs medical attention,” Shiro said immediately, “they suffered a head wound and most likely a concussion.”

“We will see to that,” the officer said and Pidge could almost hear the unspoken ' _eventually_ '.

Two officers stepped forward and snapped handcuffs around Pidge's and Shiro's wrists. Pidge winced instinctively but didn't resist being escorted onto the ship.

“Ma'am, what are we going to do with the lion... things?” Pidge heard Sven ask.

“Call headquarters and get them to send transport ships. I want these back at HQ under a forcefield.”

“You can't transport them without a tractor beam when their shields are up,” Shiro said, twisting in the grip the officers had on them.

Pidge stopped dead in their tracks, struggling against the hold of the officers against their arms, and looked back at the lions. Black's shields were up but Green was still lying on his side, a huge gash in the front paw and no energy shield in sight. They were going to take him.

The leading officer scoffed. “Take only the smaller one then. And make seven men stay here to guard the other one. I don't want it randomly disappearing.”

Pidge shot Shiro a helpless look but Shiro just shook his head, his mouth set into a tight line. There was nothing they could do.

“They're not going to do anything to you,” Pidge said angrily. “We're not here to blow up the planet or whatever!”

“Let us be the judge of that...”

One of the officers jabbed an elbow into Pidge's side and the ramp of the ship closed behind them.

 

The patrol ships were sparsely furnished so the officers pushed Pidge and Shiro into adjoining seats and buckled them in, then locked their handcuffs to the seatbelts.

Pidge struggled against the restraints at first but after some jabs from the officer next to them they slumped against the wall, limp and exhausted.

When they looked to the side, Shiro was shaking.

Pidge immediately went into panic mode. “Shit, Shiro, are you okay?”

Shiro had his eyes squeezed shut, but he nodded.

“Shiro, come on,” Pidge pleaded.

“I'm _fine_ ,” Shiro said.

“No talking,” one of the officers sitting opposite them barked but Pidge chose to ignore him.

“Uh, no, you're not. You're shaking and I'm pretty sure both of us are having a panic attack right now.”

“I'm okay,” Shiro insisted. “I'll be fine. I just don't... don't like being chained up like this.”

“Yeah, no shit,” Pidge said. “I'm- Oh. Oh shit, Shiro. Are you having flashbacks?”

Shiro didn't answer but Pidge could see the knuckles of his right hand turning white. They could see the panic in the way his jaw was clenching. They took a deep breath.

“It's gonna be okay, you hear me? This isn't Galra. We're on earth, these are humans. Once they confirm who we are we're going to be fine, okay?” They tried scooting closer to Shiro. “No one is going to make you fight in an arena again.”

And suddenly Pidge realized that while Shiro hadn't been the champion anymore, he still had had to fight in an arena of their own making every day.

“You're gonna be okay,” Pidge insisted. They pushed the thought that humans could be just as terrible as Galra soldiers aside. They needed hope right now. _Shiro_ needed hope right now. “We're going to be okay.”

It felt like a lie but Pidge desperate clung to the hope that someone would believe them. There had to be people at the Garrison who weren't completely corrupt.

Their head was spinning again but at least Shiro seemed to be unclenching his fists and breathing a little better.

“Thank you, Pidge.”

“I gotta take care of my fellow paladins, don't I?” Pidge mumbled. _My family_ , they thought to themselves, surprising themselves. When had they started thinking of the others as their family?

 

 

Despite the anxiety, Pidge eventually fell asleep.

When she woke up again she was on a cot, covered by a blanket. She blinked, taking in the light ceiling above her and for a moment she thought she was back in the castle of lions. Then Shiro's concerned face was hovering above her and broke the illusion.

“Oh good, you're awake.”

“Where are we?” Pidge asked and sat up.

“Portable quarantine chamber,” Shiro said.

“They gave us one together?” Pidge wondered aloud.

Shiro shrugged. “They have some human decency.”

Pidge reached up to feel her head, which now seemed to be covered in gauze instead of the fabric from Shiro's suit. “Ugh, did they stitch me up?”

“Yeah, you started bleeding again about halfway through the flight and I could finally convince them that you were indeed one of them and needed medical attention.”

“One of them?” Pidge asked, raising an eyebrow in amusement.

Shiro rolled his eyes. “Yeah, human.”

“Do they believe us now?”

“I don't know,” Shiro sighed. “They dumped us here and haven't been back yet so I figure they're off reporting to the commander and then someone is going to come speak to us again. Or prod us with weapons, whichever they think is safer.”

“Ugh,” Pidge repeated. “They couldn't even give us food?”

“You sound like Hunk,” Shiro said and Pidge was happy to see that he was smiling.

“Yeah, well, I'm hungry,” Pidge mumbled. “And the quarantine thing is bullshit. We're neither aliens nor sick.”

“There could be fatal quintessence radiation,” Shiro deadpanned.

“Evil wormhole zaps,” Pidge said and rolled her eyes. “Anyway, I'm surprised they didn't separate us and chain us to walls or something. Or sedation, like they did to you.”

“Well, considering how last time went maybe they changed protocols,” Shiro said. “Also you were already unconscious and I was being relatively reasonable and peaceful.”

“God forbid someone who's being taken prisoner presents in any way hostile,” Pidge mumbled.

“For all they know we are invaders,” Shiro said.

“That's bullshit!” Pidge said, louder than she had intended. “They know exactly who you are. They only need to scan my fingerprint to know who I am. They're just pretending they know what they're doing but they have _no idea_ -”

She was interrupted by the doors hissing and sliding open.

 

Pidge had expected one of the higher ups, maybe the Commander's assistant, but instead they were greeted by Commander Iverson himself.

“Sir,” Shiro said immediately, though he didn't salute. Pidge didn't say anything.

“Well, this is certainly a situation,” the man said as the doors closed behind him and eyed them with his arms crossed in front of his chest. “Cadet. Pilot. I guess.”

“You can put us through those advanced lie detectors you have, since identification doesn't seem to be enough for you,” Pidge said immediately. “Yes, we're human, yes, we are who we say we are. No, we're not under Galra control.”

“Galra?” He looked skeptical and Pidge got only angrier.

“Aliens,” Pidge she impatiently. “Don't look at me like that, you know they exist. I mean obviously you don't want to think about it because you _covered it up_ but anyway _,_ I'm telling you, we've fought them.”

Iverson held up a hand. “I believe you.”

Pidge sputtered. “Then why are we _here_?!”

“Because I can't let you leave, according to protocol, before interrogating you.”

“Pidge,” said Shiro, who had apparently sensed that Pidge was about to scream at the leader of the Garrison. “He's right.”

“Fuck protocol,” Pidge said. “I'm pretty sure you violated your precious protocol by covering up what happened on Kerberos anyway.”

“Yes,” Iverson said immediately and that shut up Pidge effectively. “But only because we had no choice in the matter. Evidence of alien activity so close to earth would have put the greater public into a panic. We couldn't risk it.”

“With all due respect, sir,” Shiro said before Pidge could go on another rage-fueled rant. “Not telling the public is one thing but leaving the families and most of the Garrison in the dark is another and I can't condone that – especially since I was involved and there were apparently no attempts to look for us.”

“Do we look like we have deep space ships, son? We barely made it to Kerberos. And if this had been more widespread knowledge than it had, it would have gone public. It was just not in our power.”

Pidge wanted to throw every insult she knew at his head. “That's bullshit and you know it. Couldn't risk it? The Galra knows we're here. At some point they'll come to take over earth – or worse, destroy it. You need to get ready for that, not cover your asses in case the public can't take it.”

He smiled at her dangerously. “May I remind you that you violated direct orders, kidnapped a pilot, and fled the planet in an unidentified flying robot lion.”

“No, you don't have to, I'm aware,” Pidge shot back. “And once my lion recovers we'll be out here in no time.”

“Pidge,” Shiro groaned.

“We'll talk about this more later,” he said. “Then you can tell me all about these Galra aliens you keep talking about and your lions. In the meantime you will eat something and I will have to think about what to tell your families because your mother, Katie Holt, has been terrorizing me every day since you disappeared. Honestly I regret ever letting your family become a part of the Garrison.” There was no sharpness behind the last sentence, but Pidge was seething anyway.

“That's not my name!” she shouted after Iverson as he exited through the doors again.

 

 

Another officer brought them food half an hour later. Standard Garrison rations but they had never been so relieved to see potatoes on their plates.

“I can't believe he knows who I am now,” Pidge growled as she shoveled food into her mouth. “I hate him!”

“They took your thumb prints,” Shiro shrugged, eating more slowly and deliberately. “And there was nothing you could do, your fabricated Garrison cadet identity wouldn't hold up under that.”

“It's not _fabricated_!” Pidge snapped.

Shiro shook his head. “I know, I'm sorry.”

“I mean, yes, I was banned from the Garrison but I only really lied about my last name. It's not my fault that they're all so stuck up!”

“The truth is out there and all?” Shiro smiled.

“Exactly!” Pidge pointed her fork at him. “They could have just told me and then we wouldn't be in this mess.”

Shiro raised an eyebrow. “You wouldn't have rallied for a rescue mission?”

“Of course I would have. But I wouldn't have forced him to expose every little detail to the public. I just wanted to know the truth about my family.”

“He shouldn't have denied you that,” Shiro said.

“Yes!” Pidge said. “And even if it's now void anyway because I know, and you're here and he has to do something, doesn't make it alright.”

“He can't keep two giant lions a secret,” Shiro said, tiredly. “Even if he miraculously managed to avoid half the Garrison notice us taking off in the blue lion.”

“As if,” Pidge said.

“We'll just have to wait and see,” Shiro said, pushing his half-eaten food away.

Pidge eyed him with concern. “I hate waiting,” she mumbled.

“I know you do.”

They sat in silence for a moment while Pidge attempted to finish her food, but her gaze kept coming back to Shiro's plate. “Hey, Shiro, are you okay?”

He smiled at her. “I'm good, just tired. Today was just... a lot.”

“You can sleep,” Pidge said. “I'm awake now and honestly I don't think I'm concussed. It's gonna be a while until he comes back.”

“Are you sure?” Shiro asked but he looked relieved.

“Go to sleep, Shiro.”

 

 

Shiro had just nodded off when the doors hissed open again.

Pidge looked at the figure in the doorway and felt her heart skip a beat.

“Mom?” she asked, incredulous.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> title comes from Gerard Way's [Millions](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f1OGfkoldxk) because i've been largely writing this to Hesitant Alien haha
> 
> come talk to me on [twitter](https://twitter.com/luffylaws) or [tumblr](https://luffylaws.tumblr.com), none of my friends care about voltron yet!


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> here we are for chapter 2; slowly introducing other characters _and_ POV changes, exciting!

 

Hunk was scared shitless.

He was also slightly hungry, and in any normal situation these two things wouldn't have been anything out of the ordinary but seeing as he was currently floating through dark space with his friends nowhere in sight he was, rightfully, full-on panicking.

“Guys?” he asked tentatively into the comms. “Hey, guys? Allura? Anyone?”

He was greeted with only silence.

“Alright, okay,” he said, talking to himself to keep at least a little bit of composure. “This is fine.”

Peering out of the Yellow Lion's eyes and into the different maps didn't give him much info on where he was – of course there was a name and a map for the constellation he had ended up in, but they were unfamiliar and meant nothing to him.

“Shit. How do I locate the others again? Or the castle? Can I do that?”

The lion stayed silent in his head but a new compartment of the hologram lit up. Hunk took a deep breath and eyed the yellow and blue blinking dots with trepidation. “Well, I guess that's something. If that one's blue that means it's Lance, right?”

He wasn't sure, he could have imagined it, but in his head, the lion seemed to purr.

“I guess I'll take that as a yes. Thanks, buddy!”

He guided Yellow in the direction of Lance's dot.

“Lance, can you hear me?”

Silence.

 

Thankfully it didn't take long for him to reach the small moon Lance had stranded on.

The Blue Lion was sitting on the surface peacefully, eyes aglow but unmoving and Hunk just looked at it for a moment before he surveyed the empty-looking moon from his relatively safe perch inside Yellow's head who had settled opposite the other lion.

“Lance?” he asked tentatively.

Still no answer.

“Alright, guess I'm going over there...”

He made sure his helmet was on properly and activated the atmosphere control and oxygen supply before leaving his lion.

“I swear to god if I float off into space I'm suing the universe,” he mumbled as he took the first steps onto the unknown moon. Sometimes he really regretted joining the Garrison. Maybe he could sue them. Or the Galra.

He made it to the Blue Lion without his suit malfunctioning or surprise aliens attacking him.

“Hey, man, open up,” he said to the giant lion, feeling more ridiculous and worried by the second. “If Lance isn't answering there's clearly something wrong so hurry up.”

Apparently the lion seemed to be sentient enough for that and lowered its head to let Hunk in.

“Lance?” he called once he went through the airlock. “Hey, are you okay?”

He found Lance passed out in his seat.

“Shit, Lance,” Hunk rushed to his side and cradled his face in his hands. “Wake up, dude!”

Lance didn't wake up but when Hunk fumbled to find his pulse that seemed strong enough and he was breathing steadily.

In his fear, Hunk started talking to the lions again.

“Is he okay?”

Blue didn't give him a direct answer but some of the lights on the left side of the holo displays, where the pilot and paladin observation was located, flashed green and Hunk studied them for a moment to make sure that Lance was definitely alright. All his vitals seemed good.

“I can't believe you're the pilot and all it takes for you to pass out is being forcefully ejected from a space castle in a wormhole,” Hunk grumbled. He didn't really know what to do so he just settled in next to Lance.

Waiting was better than panicking.

 

* * *

 

 

Pidge stared at her mom with wide eyes that had started filling with tears. Her mother didn't seem to be doing better herself.

She closed the distance between them in two long strides and closed her arms around her child. “Thank you,” she said, silent enough that Shiro on the other side of the room just almost couldn't hear it. “Thank you for coming back to me.”

“Mom,” Pidge cried, reciprocating the hug with an equal amount of force and feeling.

Her mother had lost even more weight since the last time she had seen her, seeming frail and lost and suddenly Pidge was overcome by guilt. She shouldn't just have left like that.

They stayed like that for a long time until Mrs. Holt pulled back, her hands hovering next to Pidge's bandaged head protectively. “What happened to you?”

“It looks worse than it is,” Pidge said quickly.

“Your suit is literally covered in blood,” her mother said, looking down at her.

“Well, they haven't given me a change of clothes,” Pidge said. “I'm fine, I swear.”

“Did Iverson really let you in?”

Mrs. Holt scoffed and shook her head. “He didn't, so we don't have a lot of time. I convinced one of the guards to let me in but it's only a matter of time until Iverson finds out and comes to throw me out.”

“That's my mom,” Pidge said and wiped away her tears.

But Mrs. Holt was already not looking at her anymore, staring instead at Shiro like she had seen a ghost. “Shiro… So it's true...”

“Mom, Dad and Matt are _alive_ ,” Pidge urged.

“Where were you?” she asked them, both of them, her gaze flicking between them.. “Pidge, you've been gone for over a _month_. At first I didn't think anything was wrong but you used to call me every two weeks and when I heard the rumors about an incident at the Garrison...”

“Space,” Pidge said and had to laugh a little. “Mom, I was in space. I'm sorry. I'm _so sorry_.”

Pidge hadn't been able to keep her sneaking into the Garrison as a cadet a secret from her mother very long. She had considered just running away but known that this would break her mother, who had already lost her husband and son. Pidge may have been selfish, but she wasn't that selfish. So she had faked a University acceptance letter and pretended to go to school out of state until, well, her mother had found out. Pidge had never been very good at keeping secrets from her.

“You were in space,” Mrs. Holt said, incredulous. “Pidge, what-”

“Mom, we're pilots,” Pidge said hastily. “Not just that we're _paladins_. We defend the universe against aliens. And those aliens have Dad and Matt because they've like, built an entire intergalactic empire based on fear and slavery.”

“Paladins?” she echoed and the disbelief in her voice was evident.

“Yeah, uh… Did you hear about that giant blue robot lion? Lance pilots that one and there's four more! I'm the green one's paladin and if we come together we form this huge robot called Voltron!”

She could see that her mother didn't believe her and closed her mouth, her face pulled into an unhappy expression.

“It's true,” Shiro said, speaking for the first time since Mrs. Holt had entered the room. “The Galra empire – the aliens Pidge is talking about – abducted your husband, Matt and me from Kerberos when we were taking samples. I escaped after fighting in a colosseum-like arena for months...”

Pidge nodded along eagerly as he relayed his story and watched as her mother's face softened when Shiro spoke about saving Matt from the fight.

“And ever since we found each other and the lions we've been fighting the Galra and trying to find and free your family,” he closed with.

Pidge's mother didn't say anything for a few moments before she sighed. “I don't know what to think of all this,” she said. “But I doubt you would lie about this, seeing how you're standing here before me, battered and bruised.”

Pidge smiled and nudged her mother's hand. “We'll get them back,” she promised. “But first we need to get out of here. Can you help us?”

Her mother shook her head. “I wouldn't know how. I barely know how to get out myself.”

“We'll be fine,” Shiro said. “Don't put yourself through any more trouble.”

Pidge opened her mouth to protest but one look at her mother shut her up. Shiro was right. They had to get themselves out of this on their own.

“I'll try to talk to Commander Iverson again,” her mother said. “And see what I can do. Just... promise me not to just fly off again without saying goodbye.”

“I promise,” Pidge said and then suddenly another question popped into her mind. “Mom, what day is today?” She hadn't thought they had been away for so long, but at first the days on Arus had been longer than the ones on earth and then later in space observing time had been even harder.

Her mom stopped in front of the doors and looked back, smiling sadly. “It's May 13,” she said.

Which meant it was three days to Pidge's 18th birthday.

She watched as her mother turned away and raised a hand to rap on the wall so she would be let out by the same guard who had presumably also defied orders and let her in.

Pidge sat back on the small cot and looked on as her mother left.

Now the both of them would have to do their best to follow her.

 

 

 

They weren't sure how much time passed until Iverson returned, their chamber devoid of any clocks and no time-keeping devices in their suits. It was long enough for Shiro to finally fall asleep and get a few hours of shuteye and Pidge to drift off themselves.

When he came back, he was seemingly oblivious to Pidge's mother's visit.

“All your tests for any illnesses came back negative,” he said, “and your blood samples don't show anything out of the ordinary, so we can move you to a different location and begin your interrogation process.”

“Who's going to interrogate us?” Shiro asked, already on his feet. Pidge wasn't sure if it was out of habit or anxiety.

“I am,” Iverson said, “as well as a board of trusted Garrison members.”

“So _now_ you're trusting people with the knowledge?” Pidge scoffed and was met with an icy stare.

“I'm evaluating my options,” Iverson said. “I need to do what's best for the Garrison and the public.”

“Yeah, whatever,” Pidge mumbled but got up too to follow Iverson.

“Are you going to cuff us again?” Shiro asked and Pidge was sure they could hear a tint of fear in his voice.

Iverson pursed his mouth and looked at them both for a moment before shaking his head. “No,” he then said, “you've made no attempts at breaking out and are behaving peacefully, so as long as you don't try anything we'll take you over to the main building without any restraints.”

Shiro and Pidge looked at each other for a second. That guard must even have disabled the drone camera hovering in the corner of the quarantine chamber for the time Pidge's mother had been there, otherwise this conversation would be going a lot differently.

“Let's go,” Iverson said, “all the cadets are confined to their dorms but even in the middle of the nights it's probably going to be almost impossible to get you to the administrations building unseen.”

Pidge would have loved to say something about the irony of the situation but chose to keep their mouth shut. He couldn't believe they had snuck out of the dorms a few weeks ago just to be smuggled back in now because _other_ cadets could be watching. They almost wished someone would, and spark a chain effect revolt.

The Garrison couldn't go on like this.

 

 

They were brought into one of the rooms Pidge remembered having theoretical lessons in.

Iverson's assistant was there as well as two former pilots Pidge knew relatively well, and three of their teachers. The officer Shiro had called Sven was also there and winked at the both of them as they were escorted to their seats.

“I figured it was him,” Shiro mumbled, low enough that only Pidge could hear it.

“He let my mom in?” Pidge asked.

Shiro nodded.

They sat down next to each other while Iverson strode up to the front of the room.

“Welcome everyone,” he said. “I trust you've been briefed on why this meeting is being held. You're to assist me in evaluating the statements made by Pilot Shirogane and Ms. Holt and determining the actions we should take following their arrival.”

Pidge raised their hand with a sigh. “Sounds good, sorry, I'm not going to complain for once. But can you refer to me as either Cadet Holt – or whatever last name you wanna use – or, if you've already booted me from the academy, just Pidge? Thanks.”

Iverson stared at them for a moment before nodding. “Alright, cadet.”

Pidge wondered if he just didn't want to bother figuring out their name and didn't want to get into it or if this meant that they weren't officially kicked out of the Garrison yet. They didn't particularly care.

They and Shiro leaned back and waited while Iverson relayed a rough summary of what they had told him before he nodded at Shiro to fill in the blanks and present his side of the story.

Thankfully the dramatic reveal of which family Pidge belonged to was overshadowed by the news that yes, aliens were indeed out there and they were worse than the Garrison had expected.

“I would like to keep this as contained as possible, but as previous experiences show – for example the Kerberos mission – this isn't always the best course of action. And since the threat seems to be becoming more urgent I can't keep this completely silent anymore,” Iverson finally closed with.

“Best non-apology apology I've ever heard,” Pidge mumbled. At least he had admitted his mistake.

“Considering our observations and what we know about the real Kerberos mission, this all seems plausible,” one of the teachers said, too far away to have heard Pidge's remark. “And if what you're saying about these... Galra is true, then that's very concerning.”

“I'd still say it shouldn't leave this room,” a former pilot said. “Not until we know more about the actual threat so we don't throw the students and earth's population into an unjust panic.”

“People will panic if the Galra show up and you haven't prepared them,” Shiro said, extending his arms forward in a helpless motion. “I understand that it's difficult but you could ease them into it, say that Pidge and I – or a few pilots, if you want to keep it anonymous – are investigating evidence of alien life in the galaxy.”

“What's with the arm?” Sven piped up before any of the others could say anything.

“Have you never seen a prosthetic limb?” Pidge shot back because they had seen Shiro visibly flinch at the question. Shiro put a hand on their shoulder.

“It's okay,” he said before turning back to Sven. “I lost my arm while I was a Galra captive and they outfitted me with this one pr... so I could continue fighting.”

Pidge slightly raised their eyebrows at the swallowed 'presumably' but didn't say anything. It was probably better not to mention Shiro's spotty memory here. They didn't like thinking like this, but it wouldn't help their case.

“The tech and medical departments will put Pilot Shirogane through some tests after this meeting to make sure that his arm doesn't have any negative impact on his performance or endangers him by being made from materials unknown to us,” Iverson cut in.

Shiro and Pidge traded a concerned look. Considering what Shiro's arm could do, this probably wouldn't convince anyone that he was fit to lead their mission – not to mention an inevitable psych evaluation looming in their future.

“I'm still confused,” another teacher said, “as to how these lions you told us about operate. I wouldn't advise letting either Shiro or Cadet Holt continue with this 'Voltron mission' without looking into this more, especially since Shiro just returned from a year-long captivity and Cadet Holt hasn't finished their education. Neither have the other cadets, by the way.”

“It's not about that-” Pidge started but was interrupted by alarms sounding loudly through the building.

Their heart rate skyrocketed and for a moment they thought the Galra had found them, that this was the end of planet Earth; until they heard a growl from outside, followed by a familiar thump of four robot paws landing on desert sand.

A few seconds later a young officer burst through the doors of the hall, panting heavily. “Sir,” he said, gasping for breath, “Sir, a giant... giant robot lion just landed in front of the complex.”

Iverson turned – almost in slow-motion – to look at Pidge and Shiro.

Shiro smiled and shrugged. “I guess you're going to meet my lion then.”

 

* * *

 

 

By the time Lance woke up the moon was lying in darkness and Hunk was watching the black craters outside with dull eyes. When he turned to look at Lance he almost had a heart attack because Lance had opened his eyes and jerked back so hard he hit the floor with flailing arms.

“Wow, Lance,” he gasped. “Hey. Oh man, you're awake.”

“Where are we?” Lance groaned. “Why are you on the floor?”

“Some moon,” Hunk shrugged. “And nowhere near the others.” He chose not to answer the second question and clambered back to his feet instead.

“Ugh,” Lance made and sat up a little straighter. “I'm hungry.”

“Lions have no food goo,” said Hunk sadly. “And this moon has no vegetation.”

Lance sighed unhappily. “Man, I want to go home.”

“Castle home or home home?” Hunk asked.

“Huh...” Lance blinked, evidently confused. “You know... I'm not sure. Either way, I want to go somewhere with a bed, food and the others.”

“I bet the damn ship is probably malfunction after the wormhole went all crazy,” Hunk mumbled. “So that's why they can't contact us or we them, for that matter. And Shiro, Pidgen and Keith didn't show up on the holo map either, even though I tried changing the range and parameters...”

Lance bolted from his seat suddenly, making Hunk flinch.

“Keith!” he said. “Hunk, we gotta find Keith.”

Hunk stared at him. “What?”

“We _have_ to find Keith. He's alone out there!”

“How do you know?” Hunk asked, but he was already helping Lance put his helmet back on.

Lance tilted his had. “I don't know,” he admitted. “But I do.”

Hunk sighed. “Well, I checked the lions over and they seem good to go so if you have a vague direction we should go in I guess that's... good enough.” That didn't mean he was comfortable with it, but staying on this lost little moon didn't seem too sensible either. Nobody was going to save them and last time they had just taken off of a planet without directions the Blue Lion had also known where to take them.

He settled on trusting Lance on this one.

 

 


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> aaand i'm back :D
> 
> had to correct a minor continuity mistake in the last chapter but it should still all make sense :P

  


Keith had thought he had known loneliness – but his current situation was proving him wrong.

It was one thing to be alone on earth, but in retrospect it had been a lot better than orbiting a star in deep space in a robot lion with his comms eerily quiet and his holo map devoid of any familiarity.

He had felt like giving up a lot of times before but this was the worst it had ever been. For a while he just put his head on his knees, staring at the sun in front of him and wondered what burning would feel like.

Losing Shiro the first time had been bad, but this was almost worse, losing him all over again and the other paladins on top of that.

Floating out here in space, he had never felt this insignificant before in his life.

Maybe it had all been for nothing anyway. The heartbreak, getting Shiro back, fighting against an enemy they barely knew…

  


Then he felt a mental nudge.

The lion was trying to tell him something.

“What?” Keith asked, frantically trying to find a clue on the dashboard. The lion couldn’t even move, which was why he had been floating in this close vicinity of this sun for at least two hours already. “ _What is it_?”

Suddenly the lion flooded him with mental warmth and feelings of familiarity.

It was trying to comfort him.

Keith wanted to lay down on the metal floor and cry.

“How is this supposed to help?” he asked instead and he hated the way his voice wobbled. Why was the damn lion using its energy on trying to give positive feelings to him when what he needed was a way back to the castle, or one of the other lions with his friends inside them? A way to move this currently useless giant piece of space metal would have been welcome, too.

“I want to go home,” Keith said, too loudly for the confined space and the fact he was alone. It was the first time in a long time he had uttered the words. “I want to go home!”

He didn’t even know what or where home was.

Again the lion gave him the feeling, but it was fiercer this time. It reminded Keith of Shiro.

That’s where Keith would have liked to be right now. With Shiro.

Maybe Shiro was home.

And then he thought of the other paladins and the lion’s overwhelming need to fill him with feelings and he wanted to cry again.

He was at home with them now.

Which was why he needed to get back to them.

“What am I supposed to do?” he asked the lion. “I can’t even manually fire your blasters or anything to get out of orbit, because you’re fucking _broken_!”

There was a low growl that resonated through the entire body of the lion. And Keith finally realized what it was saying.

Red was trying to tell him to get it together.

“How’s that gonna help us?” Keith grumbled. “Another few hours and we’ll probably fly straight into the sun because of damn gravity.”

The lion growled again.

“Oh, shut up.”

Keith let himself fall back into the chair and stared at the flashing warnings on his dashboard.

“How long is it gonna take you to get your power back?” he asked after a few seconds of silence. “It’s not like I can recharge you with my anger now, is it?”

The lion rumbled again and this time it almost sounded – and felt – like laughter.

“Very funny,” Keith mumbled. It wasn’t funny at all. Sure, the lion and him shared their temper but that wouldn’t help them now – not even the sun they were so close to would help them, and wasn’t that a disappointment. For once, the fire wouldn’t help him.

  


A part of the dashboard that was now flashing blue instead of red got his attention.

“What do you want me to do?” he asked, defeated.

The lion directed him to a section beneath the dashboard and when Keith pried it open, he found several crystals.

“Crystals?” he asked, incredulous. “We have _crystals_ for the comms? Are you kidding me?”

The lion rumbled approvingly.

Apparently not everything in the lions was solely powered by space magic. One of the crystals seemed to be a little out of alignment, the connection flickering in and out, but it didn’t seem to be damaged.

“Right,” Keith mumbled, already taking off the armored guards on his forearms. Doing maintenance on the hoverbike had hopefully sufficiently prepared him for this. “Guess I’ll get to work then...”

  


  


* * *

 

  


  


Pidge and Shiro were escorted out of the building again because Iverson seemed to want to investigate the Black Lion as soon as possible. Still, it seemed more to keep them from running off and give the Garrison the illusion that they had control over them than anything else, since students were up and about and not abiding by the curfew at all.

Pidge waved at a girl they recognized from their class and one of the officers slapped their hand down.

“Hey!” Pidge protested. “I was just being friendly. They know we’re here anyway now...”

“No contact with the cadets,” the officer said.

Pidge wondered if that meant that they now weren’t considered a cadet anymore. Shiro next to them was suspiciously quiet.

  


  


When they reached the yard in front of the building, the Black Lion was standing in front of the Green Lion, growling. It must have taken out the Garrison men guarding it on Hawaii, because Iverson didn’t seem to have known about it being on the move until it had arrived at the Headquarters.

Green wasn’t actually visible behind its forcefield and the makeshift construction of metal frames and thick fabric that the Garrison had erected to keep it from view.

“I bet that didn’t make any nosy cadets curious at all,” Pidge mumbled and Shiro chuckled.

They growling grew louder as they approached.

“It’s best to let me talk to him,” Shiro said.

“It might attack if it thinks we’re in any danger,” Pidge added for good measure. For all they knew, the Black Lion would jump in if the Garrison tried to hurt them – the lions had protected the paladins time and time again.

Iverson looked at them for a moment before he sighed. “Go ahead,” he said but motioned for one of the officers to follow Shiro.

  


Black still didn’t seem to be satisfied even after Shiro had walked up to it. It had stopped growling but didn’t lower its head to let Shiro in and waves off discontent seemed to be rolling off it – even Pidge could feel it and they wondered if that made the lion’s emotions especially strong, since usually only the corresponding paladin could communicate with their lion.

Did the lions even have feelings and emotions? Pidge was still unsure about how sentient exactly they were.

“Let down the forcefield around the Green Lion,” Shiro said and turned to look at Iverson again. “That should do it.”

Iverson didn’t look happy about that at all but motioned to Sven and Sven walked over to a circuit box to disable the force field.

“Go check on him,” Shiro told Pidge after the force field disappeared.

Pidge complied instantly and didn’t even care about the officer accompanying them. All they cared about was the Green Lion finally reaching out to them again. It was comforting to know that no matter what it had been, the distress or the head-wound or the lion being damaged, it was over now.

They ducked behind the fabric – that was more like plastic, now that they were able to look at it up close – and were immediately standing in front of their lion.

“Hey buddy,” they said. “I missed you.”

Green made a noise that was more of a low humm than a growl and Pidge laughed.

“You too, huh?”

They were vaguely aware that Shiro had followed them behind the lion’s confines and that Iverson and Sven were there too now – even though they kept their respectful distance, probably out of fear – but they couldn’t look away from their lion.

They let their eyes wander over the lion’s exterior and their gaze was caught by its left paw. The large gash they had seen there yesterday – had it really only been yesterday? – was still there.

“Oh no...” they mumbled and went to inspect the damage.

All the circuiting inside the paw looked fine, but the metal hadn’t mended at all. Maybe space magic could only do so much.

“I’m sorry buddy, I should’ve looked after you better,” Pidge mumbled and touched the Green Lion apologetically. Then they turned to Shiro. “I guess I could ask them to lend me equipment so I can fix this but I don’t know how much good that’ll do since the metal isn’t anything we have on earth and is much harder… And they might not want to give it to me at all.”

Shiro tilted his head to the side. “Yeah, the equipment you used in the castle of lions was different than what we have on earth, wasn’t it?”

“Definitely hotter than what we have here,” Pidge nodded. “It was a pain to work with.”

“Shield me,” Shiro said suddenly, his hand already starting to glow purple. “I can fix this but I don’t want these guys seeing what I can do.”

“ _What_?” Pidge tried to push his hand down. “Just wait until we have a chance to do it unsupervised.”

“It’s better if I do it now,” Shiro said. “Otherwise they might ask even more questions about the lions. Distract them!”

“I’m literally like half your size,” Pidge complained in a hissed tone but moved anyway so Iverson and the other Garrison Officers couldn’t see what Shiro was doing. Privately they wondered what was wrong with Shiro. What had gotten into him that he was doing something this unnecessarily reckless?

“What do you think?” they asked loudly in the direction of the Garrison Officers.

Sven stared at them in confusion. “Huh?”

“The lions,” Pidge clarified. “Aren’t they cool?”

“I… suppose so?” Sven asked, his eyes fixed on the lion’s large head.

“Are they solar powered?” Iverson intercepted.

Pidge shook their head. “No, not a good idea in deep space,” they said and then weighed their next words for a second. “There’s this energy source in space that’s basically crystals formed from the life-source of a sentient planet. It’s extremely interesting! And the lions can store vast amounts of energy on their own.” It wasn’t a full lie, at least. They hadn’t said that the lions themselves were powered by the crystals.

“Fascinating...” Sven mumbled.

And then, obviously, things went wrong.

“Hey, what’s he doing?!” the other officer that had come in yelled, pointing at Shiro.

Pidge yelped and Shiro groaned in frustration.

“He was just looking at a scratch in the exterior!” Pidge said hastily.

“It’s okay Pidge,” Shiro said, stepping out from behind them. The glow of his arm was just receding. Pidge’s heart sank as they realized he was about to tell Iverson the truth, but there was nothing they could do to stop him. “I was fixing a gash in the exterior of the lion, actually.”

“With your arm?” Sven asked, incredulous.

All three Garrison Officers had reached for their weapons.

“It’s advanced tech,” Shiro said, “I can use it to weld things and additionally it’s stronger than a regular human arm or prosthetic.” Pidge noticed that Shiro had consciously avoided using the word alien, despite the arm having Galra origins.

Iverson’s eyes flicked from Shiro’s arm to his face and back again.

“Come with me,” he said, ice in his voice.

  


  


* * *

 

  


  


A section of the dashboard suddenly lit up and Lance almost jumped out of his seat.

“Shit, dude, I can’t see him but I can see Keith!”

Hunk looked up from where he had been fiddling with the Blue Lion’s controls to get them working at a hundred percent again before they left the moon and stared at him in confusion. That sentence had made no sense at all. Had Lance completely lost it now? “What?”

“His comms!” Lance yelled, arms waving. “They’re back online!”

Hunk peered at the holo display and let out a whistle. “Oh man, you’re right!” He got to his feed. “The signal’s weak though.”

Lance put his hands on the dashboard. “Can we make it stronger?”

“I can try,” Hunk said and pushed his hands aside. In this situation Lance’s overeager attempts at helping would be more of a hindrance than anything else.

  


Hunk really, really hated hearing subspace chatter in languages he couldn’t understand when he picked it up on accident – it made him nervous – and communications wasn’t his primary area, but he had learned enough back at the Academy to know how to boost a signal. Even in the alien mecha lions. If he toned down the observation of nearby constellations and maybe lowered the lion’s internal shield a little, it should work.

“Is it working?” Lance asked, as if on cue.

“Shh, I’ve almost got it,” Hunk mumbled distractedly, his hands flying over the lion’s controls, pulling up the transmitter levels. Keith’s signal became stronger and the static in the comms vanished.

“Keith?” Hunk asked, his voice filled with hope.

A crackling in the comms.

Then.

“Hunk?”

Keith’s voice sounded far away and there was no chance to get visual, but at least they had established a comm link. Hunk threw his arms up in triumph and received a high-five from Lance before Lance turned back to the comms.

“Keith!” Lance yelled and Hunk instinctively covered his left ear. “Keith, where are you?”

“Lance,” Keith said and for a moment Hunk almost thought he was crying, before he continued. “I don’t know, my map’s not working and I barely got the comms to function at all. I’m orbiting some sun.”

“I have you on my map,” Hunk said, shoving at Lance so he could talk into the mic better. “Our lions can probably get us there so hang tight.”

“We’re coming to get you,” Lance announced. He was already up and shoving at Hunk to make him go back to the Yellow Lion.

Keith’s “Thank you” was so silent that Hunk almost missed it.

He didn’t know if his heart ached because of the stress and anxiety, or because he was hurting for Keith. At least Yellow had been functional, he had found Lance pretty quickly and Lance hadn’t even been awake for his time alone. But being alone out there, with no way to communicate for hours and no way to leave his current position had to have been terrible. Hunk could imagine nothing worse than being dead in space and facing an unknown future alone.

  


  


* * *

 

  


  


Iverson insisted that they weren’t prisoners or being detained and sure, the door wasn’t locked but there was armed guards in front of them and they weren’t allowed to leave. So Shiro was pretty sure that no matter the Commander said, they weren’t the Garrison’s honored _guests_.

At least there were no shackles or handcuffs. That much he was grateful for, even if it was irrational.

“I can’t believe I exposed us like this,” Shiro mumbled. He was tapping his prosthetic arm with his human fingers.

Pidge looked at him and shrugged. “Not your fault,” they said. Shiro leveled them with a disbelieving stare. “Okay, kind of your fault for fixing the lion in plain sight, but not your fault that they immediately think your arm is the devil.”

“Maybe it is,” Shiro mumbled, staring down at his prosthetic arm. If he was honest it did surprise him that Iverson hadn’t decided to put any restraints on it. It was unknown, and – for all the Garrison knew – dangerous.

“It’s not some kind of evil tech with a mind of its own,” Pidge argued. “It’s a prosthetic, Shiro. It belongs to you now, no matter who made it or how you got it.”

Shiro eyed them for a moment before looking away again. “Doesn’t always feel like it,” he said. Sometimes operating his hand came to him, well, naturally, as if it had been a part of his body since birth and not just for a few months. And then on other days it felt like a whole other thing, too alien, like it wasn’t supposed to be there at all and his real hand was a thousand miles away and desperately trying to crawl back to him. The arm was his, but it was also Galra.

He still couldn’t remember how exactly he had gotten it, everything between him becoming the Champion and his escape back to Earth a dark void in his mind.

He shuddered slightly.

“I’ve done maintenance on it,” Pidge insisted and when Shiro looked up from his hand and at them there was something intense in their eyes. “It’s basically like one of the lion’s arms, except it’s directly connected to your nerves. They couldn’t make you take it off.”

“I’d like to see them try,” Shiro mumbled. Because they had, Pidge and he, one night when he had been clawing at his skin over phantom pains and had wandered the castle to find them still up, looking over the files from the Galra ship. It had ended in even more pain.

“It’s not dangerous,” Pidge said. “You have control over it.”

‘Not always,’ Shiro wanted to say. But had that really been a reaction of the arm itself, or his subconscious? Or had it been the other way around, his arm activating by itself and him breaking whatever curse the Galra had put on it and making it his own? There were too many variables and he didn’t like it.

  


  


Hours passed without a word from Iverson and finally Pidge rapped on the door, impatient for answers and news, only to be told by the guard on watch that Iverson had gone to bed.

“I guess we should sleep, too,” Shiro said, even though he didn’t like the prospect of being vulnerable in his sleep at all. A bit of rest sounded great in theory, but if there was no nightmares there would still be a harsh awakening after too little sleep. They were captives, after all.

To his surprise Pidge only sighed and threw themselves onto one of the cots.

“Fine,” they grumbled, face hidden in the pillow. “There’s nothing else to do anyway.”

Shiro had to smile a little. Out of all the Paladins, Pidge probably slept the least and hated being immobile and unoccupied the most. Finding them up and awake in the middle of the night and working on something had become one of his most familiar sights in the castle.

“Are you alright?” Shiro asked.

Pidge’s groan was muffled by their pillow. “I’m good,” they then said. “Just tired. And maybe a little headachey.”

Shiro grimaced. Their concussion probably wasn’t made better with this whole situation. He hoped that sleeping would help at least a little. “I guess we’ll find out more in the morning,” he mumbled, sitting back down on his cot himself.

“It’s already morning,” Pidge mumbled. “It was like 4am when they brought us back here.”

Shiro didn’t ask how they had known despite their room having no windows. Sure, the sky had begun getting lighter when they had been escorted back to this room, but he had been busy trying to find familiar faces in the stares of cadets and officers that had come out to stare at them – despite the orders to stay inside the barracks.

Instead he put his head on his pillow and looked over at Pidge for a while.

Where they just faking their confidence, or were they repressing their anxiety to make it through this?

They were still so young, despite their birthday coming up, the youngest on the team and Shiro worried a lot about the war they were fighting taking its toll on Pidge. Especially since they had gotten into it so readily to find their family. All those late nights and Pidge working themselves into the ground for their brother and father.

Shiro needed to find them. For his own consciousness, and for Pidge, above all.

  


Shiro didn’t notice when sleep overcame him, he only felt it when he was woken up again.

“Wake up!” a voice boomed. “Commander Iverson is here to speak with you!”

Pidge groaned and was already sitting up, holding their head. “No need to yell at us,” they grumbled.

Shiro sat up, raking at hand through his hair and noticed that the back of his neck was clammy and sweaty. Had he been dreaming again? He couldn’t remember.

  


Iverson looked tired, but Shiro’s sympathy only lasted for a second.

“I’ve been talking to my advisers,” Iverson said, “and we can’t let you out of here. The entire Garrison, including the Academy, are in chaos right now because they saw you last night and explaining your presence is going to take time.”

“Bullshit,” Pidge said immediately. “We need to leave. We’ve been away for way too long already.”

“Lives are depending on us,” Shiro said. “Our friends are out there, possibly lost in space with their lions worse off than ours and meanwhile Zarkon could be setting his sights on Earth _right now_.”

Iverson shook his head. “I cannot allow it. You’re a liability.”

Anger flared up in Shiro. He suddenly understood how Keith must have felt all these months ago. How Pidge must have come to join the Garrison. Working endlessly and tirelessly to find out the truth and a way to reveal it.

Except they had the truth now. And they had the means to get off the planet and _do_ something. But they weren’t allowed, held back by humanity’s flaws.

“A _liability_?” Pidge asked, incredulous, their hands balled to fists at their sides.

“Commander,” Shiro said, trying to retain his manners and sense of respect while the anger and urgency coursed through him. “If you won’t let us out of here, I will break us out.”

He didn’t care anymore if the Garrison saw him as a threat or as brainwashed. They had abandoned him a long time ago and if they wouldn’t stand with him, he would have to stand against them, even if it hurt him down to the core. Familiarity and loyalty to the organization that had made him were one thing.

But the Paladins were more important.


	4. Chapter 4

Pidge had never seen Commander Iverson genuinely afraid. They had witnessed him being kind to cadets and officers alike, stern when he had to be, and angry when they had fucked up another simulation – but until today they hadn’t seen him with fear in his eyes.

Shiro‘s hand glowed, illuminating the scene. Pidge could see how intimidating and dangerous this must look to Iverson. Still, they didn’t feel any sympathy with the man but rather anxiety for what this meant for Shiro. He was currently robbing himself of his future on Earth and in the Garrison.

“I can’t just let you walk out of here,” Iverson said.

“You can,” Shiro retorted, “and you will.”

Pidge stepped closer to Shiro and looked up at him. They could feel the anger radiating off him but he managed to keep his composure. “You’re letting your fear paralyze you, hiding behind regulations when this is outside of anything you’ve ever experienced. You’re aware of the threat and have been for a while so either help us”, he paused and took ina breath, “or step aside and let us handle it.”

Goosebumps crept up Pidge’s neck and arms. They knew how authoritative Shiro could be, but they had grown used to his caring side, too. Since negotiating with the Galra was rarely a chance they had to take Pidge hadn’t seen him give another authority figure an ultimatum like this in a long time.

  


Iverson stared at them both for a few agonizing moments.

“Alright,” he finally said. “I’ll give you some personnel to check out your lions and give you clearance to leave the planet. But I have conditions.”

“Let’s hear them,” Shiro said.

“You will no longer be part of the Galaxy Garrison,” Iverson said and damn, that stung, “but an independent organization.” Even to Pidge that was a low blow – and they didn’t have the connection to the Garrison that Shiro had. They had only joined to find their family, and now they were going to find them without the Garrison, because they had their friends. They had been antagonized by the Garrison for over a year and they had grown to hate them the same – but Shiro, while disappointed, had had the chance to a much longer, much more prosperous career.

Shiro took a deep breath. “Okay,” he said. “That sounds fair.”

Pidge didn’t think it was fair for him to make this decision on his own, without Lance and Hunk, who’d had their own reasons to join the Garrison – then again they hadn’t hesitated in helping him, even if it meant expulsion. And Pidge knew why this was necessary, even if they didn’t like it.

“Furthermore we will establish a channel of communication with you and your… lions,” Iverson continued, his eyebrow twitching on the last word. “I want to be able to contact you if these Galra do become a threat to earth.”

“Reasonable,” Shiro said and nodded. “I’d like to give you status updates, too, so you can adjust missions accordingly.”

Iverson closed his good eye for a moment and pressed a hand to his forehead. “Good,” he finally said. “I will inform you if there is anything else. Two guards will be along shortly to guide you to your lions.”

As if Iverson couldn’t get away from them fast enough, he hurried out of the room.

Pidge immediately turned to Shiro. “Will you be alright? The Garrison was like… your life wasn’t it?”

“Yeah, it hurts.” Shiro ducked his head and smiled. “But I have you, and the others, and the lions. So I will be fine. I have… a purpose outside of the Garrison.”

  


  


Stepping into Green’s cockpit was like regaining freedom. Pidge touched the controls carefully, feeling the faint hum of the machinery and the lion’s consciousness. Here they could be themselves.

It didn’t even bother them that much that Sven had followed them close on their heels – he had turned out to be less of an asshole as he could have been, and with the Garrison that was enough for Pidge. It didn’t mean that they had to give him all of the lions’ secrets though. Some things belonged only to the paladins.

They didn’t sit down. Intead they looked over the stats on the dashboard and holos while standing; it gave them a greater sense of control, especially with a stranger hovering around.

Green was looking good, back to its old hum of activity and Pidge still had the same relief coursing through them that they had felt when the lion had reached out to them again after that long day of nothing in their mind.

Sven glanced around curiously.

“Iverson is gonna have so much trouble explaining this to the cadets,” he grinned after a moment. “But he’s gonna have to, because they’ve seen the lions like three times now, plus a missing cadet and a pilot who was declared dead months ago.”

Pidge sneered. “He might still try to pass us off as ghosts.”

“Nah, I don’t think Professor Montgomery is gonna let him. He likes you too much.”

“Me or Shiro?” Pidge asked and raised an eyebrow.

“Both of you,” Sven said.

They had to smile a little. Before entering the Academy they had sworn themselves they wouldn’t get too attached, but truth be told they had not only built a strong bond with the other paladins now but had also grown quite fond of some of their instructors.

Pidge began to set up a new channel on their communications board. “I’ll set up a frequency that will allow contact between Shiro’s and my lions and the Garrison headquarters,” they explained, “but there’s no guarantee it’ll work even a galaxy away.”

Sven shrugged. “Try anyway.”

“If it doesn’t, one of us will travel to Earth for further upgrades and exchange of information,” Shiro said over the paladins’ comm-link.

Pidge grinned as they adjusted the settings of the comms. They imagined Keith being part of that regular mission back to Earth, just to spite the Garrison. Or Keith _and_ Lance. They would have a field day.

“Alright,” they muttered, “this should work.” They hit a button. “ _Green Paladin to Galaxy Garrison_.”

“ _Galaxy Garrison_ ,” Iverson answered, loud and clear, from his position in the communications office, “ _we receive you._ ”

“Great, then I can hang up again,” Pidge said and Sven shook his head with a barely-suppressed grin. “I’ll make the same adjustments to the Black Lion and the other lions, once I can access them.” In truth, they weren’t sure if they wanted to give the Garrison the ability to contact anyone but them – Shiro had been through enough at both their hands and the Galra’s, and they wanted to protect the others as much as possible – but they knew that Shiro wouldn’t approve. Also it would just be unrealistic – they all should have the ability to communicate with Earth, in case they got split up again.

“Let’s hope it also works in outer space,” Iverson said drily. “I’ll be outside in a minute to see you off. Iverson out.”

Pidge rolled their eyes and switched off the comm-channel. “He can’t wait to see us gone, huh?”

“He’s anxious to clean up the mess you’ve made of all his lies,” Sven agreed, surprisingly honest, and Pidge raised their eyebrows.

“That’s fair.”

  


They exited the lions again, their helmets tucked under their arms.

“Sir.” Shiro nodded to Iverson, who had emerged into the desert heat to see them one last time. Shiro stood awkwardly stiff, as if he didn’t know what his quasi-military education called for at the moment.

Sven hovered between them and Iverson, his arms crossed like he wasn’t sure where he belonged. Pidge could relate.

“Shirogane,” Iverson said, tilting his head slightly.

“It was an honor being part of the Galaxy Garrison,” Shiro said, “but I have a bigger cause now.”

For a moment, Iverson looked dumbstruck. Then he nodded. “It was an honor to train you,” he said. “And an honor having you as a pilot.”

Shiro smiled but Pidge could see the strain in his expression.

“Good luck,” Iverson said, to them both now. “I hope we see each other again.”

“Thank you,” they said in unison. Pidge didn’t have much of a desire to ever see Iverson again, but at least he was preferable to Zarkon.

They ended up shaking hands with Iverson because, well, saluting didn’t feel right after having been officially released from the Garrison forces. Pidge stared him dead in the eye as they shook hands, hoping to convey that he wasn’t forgiven in their eyes and probably never would be.

To Pidge’s surprise Sven pulled both of them into a hug. “I believe in you,” he said, quietly enough that Iverson didn’t hear.

And then they walked away. Because their work here was done, for now, and they both were anxious to get back out there.

“Shirogane?” Shiro turned back for a second with a questioning glance at Iverson. “Don’t get killed.”

“I’ll try, Sir.”

Pidge grit their teeth and walked on.

There was no guarantee of that, and there never would be.

  


  


They settled into the lion’s pilot seat and Pidge’s heart suddenly felt a hundred times lighter. They would fly again. They would see the other paladins again. They would get away from earth and find their family.

But they still had family on earth, too.

“I want to visit my mom before we leave,” they said and adjusted their helmet; it suddenly felt a little too small for their head. “Just for a few minutes.”

“Okay,” Shiro replied over the comms. “But half an hour tops, alright?”

“Yeah,” Pidge said, already smiling. Their mom would understand.

“Let’s go then,” Shiro said and Pidge could clearly hear Black’s roar.

They patted Green’s dashboard. “Here we go.”

Taking off would never get old. The feeling of everything suddenly being lighter, being pressed into their seat, the world falling away on their screens.

Shiro and Pidge flew over the Garrison complex one more time.

“Don’t you want to see your parents?” Pidge asked. Maybe not the best method to distract Shiro from this particularly bittersweet parting, but oh well. It was the best they could think of right now.

Shiro’s hum was audible over the comm link. “They think I’m dead,” he said, “and I might still die. So it’s better to leave them in the dark about this.”

It made sense, but Pidge still hated it.

“But wouldn’t you want to say goodbye to them?”

There was a sharp intake of breath, then silence for a long time.

“I’m sorry,” Pidge said.

“No, it’s okay,” Shiro said after another minute. “But still, it’s better this way.”

Pidge didn’t think so, but this was Shiro’s decision and they weren’t going to fight him on it. All they knew was that they wanted to see their mother one last time before they jumped back into the fight – and if that was a bad thing, then so be it.

They flew the rest of the way to Pidge’s childhood home in silence, their lions side by side.

  


  


* * *

 

  


It felt like the lions were limping.

And while Lance knew that they were in space and the lions were currently mostly propelled by thrusters and not their movements, something still seemed off.

The fact was that they weren’t traveling as fast as he was used to and even though they were still traveling at significant speed, Hunk had told him over the comms that he estimated it would take them hours to reach Keith. It just didn’t seem right.

“I thought you said they were fine,” he said, patting Blue’s controls self-consciously as he watched the planets float by.

“I said they were _functional_ ,” Hunk answered. “Their energy reserves seem to be low and the corrupted wormhole fucked with some of their… semi-sentient software, I guess, but it’s nothing I can fix this instant. I think Yellow’s telling me they’ll be fine.”

“You _think_?” Lance echoed. That didn’t sound very promising.

“Point is,” Hunk said, “they’re still faster than your average earth spaceship so stop complaining.”

Lance dramatically brought his hand to his chest even though Hunk couldn’t see him. “You wound me.”

“Yeah yeah, I know,” Hunk grumbled but Lance could hear him grinning.

Lance kept quiet for a moment but he just couldn’t help himself. “How much longer?” he asked.

Hunk groaned. “At least another three hours.”

“I swear to god if I fall into this sun and burn before you get here I will haunt your sorry asses,” Keith, who hadn’t said anything for a while, grumbled over the comms.

“Noted,” Lance said.

“Your lion’s not gonna let that happen,” Hunk said.

  


  


  


It was three hours and thirty-seven minutes, but really, Lance wasn’t keeping count.

  


“We’re coming up on your coordinates now,” Hunk said.

“I can’t see you,” Keith said, sounding strained. He had been trying to rewire some circuits in the lion’s controls so the manual thrusters could use some of the comms’ energy and he wouldn’t actually end up falling into the sun. He had succeeded about half an hour ago but it had still grown hot inside the lion.

“Yeah, you’re on the either side of the sun,” Lance said and peered at his map. “Hold on.”

They circled the star with a wide berth and finally the Red Lion came into view.

“There you are,” Lance smiled. He didn’t think he had ever felt this relieved in his life.

“Well,” Keith said, as the thrusters on Red gave him just enough boost to gently float another kilometer closer to the other two, “if you’re slow, I’m practically a snail.”

“You’ll be fine,” Lance said. “We’re here now.”

“Is that supposed to comfort me?” Keith asked.

“Let’s land on the closest planet,” Hunk said, “so I can take a look at Red.”

“It better be uninhabited,” Keith mumbled. Lance found himself agreeing.

It took them a while to get there but finally they landed on the surface of the closest planet in the system. “Atmosphere looks good, but a bit thin,” Keith supplied. “And I guess the gravity should be enough for us not to just… float off.”

“Reassuring,” Hunk mumbled. “Alright, I’m coming over there.”

“I don’t think there’s a lot you can do but sure.”

“Let him do his thing,” Lance said, already closing his helmet so he could exit Blue. “Maybe we can shorten the recovery time – and then find the others.”

  


  


* * *

 

  


  


It took Hunk the better part of the day to carry out maintenance on all three lions – primarily Keith’s, of course. A day on this planet was nineteen hours and forty-six minutes (or twenty hours, as Lance insisted). Either way it took Hunk almost twelve of those hours to figure out the problem.

“They’re recovering and pulling a part of their energy from us,” he finally said. “And since we’re exhausted, they can only regenerate at a slow rate.”

“Oh,” Keith made, his mouth a tight line.

“So, we should sleep?” Lance asked.

“It’s getting really cold, anyway,” Hunk said and shrugged. “And we’re all exhausted – even you, sleeping beauty.” He grinned at Lance.

“Hey, that’s uncalled for,” Lance said. “But yeah, it’ll be warmer in the lions. We can’t help the others when we’re dead on our feet, anyway.”

Keith looked between them, a frown etched on his face and Hunk had trouble thinking about what displeased him about the situation.

“Couldn’t we just make the lions huddle together for shelter?” Keith asked.

Now it was Hunk’s turn to frown. “I doubt we could sleep comfortably with this air and gravity, and I think it’s gonna get _really_ cold.”

Keith looked downright unhappy after that, and finally it started to dawn on Hunk.

“Lance,” he said and turned to his best friend, “we’re gonna have a sleepover in Yellow.”

Lance’s face lit up. “Yes!”

Hunk grinned and looked back at Keith, who had tilted his head slightly. The lines on his forehead had eased and he looked almost a little thankful.

“I’m sad we can’t build a pillow fort,” Lance sighed dramatically.

“It’ll have to wait until we’re back in the castle,” Hunk said.

Keith raised his eyebrows. “You guys do that often?” he asked.

They walked into Yellow’s cockpit together. “Man, it’s hard in the dorms, but we managed,” Lance said. “They always pretend we should be all grown up and serious but honestly, we’re not that old yet.”

“Pillow forts are good for the soul,” Hunk said. The doors closed behind them. He looked down at the hard floor and sighed before he started shedding what was left of his outer armor.

“These things need survival kits,” Keith said after a moment; a hasty, stark change in topic. “This isn’t gonna be comfortable.”

“Can’t be much worse than your desert shack,” Lance quipped and Hunk threw his forearm armor at him.

“Be nice,” he instructed. Lance stuck out his tongue, but started taking of the outer layer of his suit, too.

“At least it had a bed,” Keith mumbled.

Hunk sighed and kicked off his boots, then settled on the floor. “Alright guys, come here.”

Keith blinked at him in confusion while Lance whooped excitedly and flopped down, pillowing his head on Hunk’s arm immediately. Hunk looked up at Keith and smiled a little, rolling his eyes fondly.

For a moment Keith seemed to hesitate, at war with himself, before he went to his knees next to the other two.

“Are you sure this is okay?” he asked Hunk.

“Yeah, I’ve done this a lot. My sisters liked to nap on me, too. It’s kind of nice, actually,” Hunk said.

It centered him, keeping him on the ground when he was afraid he would float off into space.

After another second of deliberation Keith settled down on Hunk’s other side, with their brushing arms as the only point of contact..

Hunk huffed out a laugh and put his arm around Keith, but didn’t pull him closer just yet. “Come on, that can’t be comfortable. I swear I don’t bite and I’m much softer than the ground.”

“He’s an excellent pillow!” Lance’s enthusiasm was muffled against the fabric of Hunk’s suit where he had slid downwards to move his head from his shoulder to his chest.

“I probably smell,” Keith mumbled.

“We do too,” Hunk said.

Finally Keith relented. “Fine,” he grumbled and scooted closer to put his head on Hunk’s shoulder. Hunk grinned. This was much better.

  


It didn’t take long for Lance to nod off and his breathing to even out.

It took Keith longer, and Hunk knew that he himself wouldn’t be able to sleep until he did, but Keith obviously didn’t seem up for a heart-to-heart and anyway, Hunk didn’t want to wake Lance again.

So he just waited.

Keith would fall asleep eventually. And until then Hunk was there to hold him.

  


 

* * *

 

  


The castle was ejected out of the wormhole with a force that brought it directly into the gravity field of a nearby planet.

Coran had been knocked to the floor; Allura had only managed to stay standing by gripping the controls so hard her knuckles went white and her wrists ached.

The proximity alert was blaring, shields were out and the holo screen kept flashing red warnings about the gravitational pull at them. “I know,” Allura mumbled frantically, flipping a switch on the control panel, “I know, I know, I know.” She had to act fast.

The stabilizer wasn’t responding. Neither were the deep-space engines.

“Coran!” She turned her head to look at her adviser, who was slowly getting up from the floor. “Give me the thrusters before we burn!”

He scrambled over to the manual controls while Allura did her best to keep the ship’s artificial gravity intact while they plummeted towards the planet’s surface.

“I can activate the thrusters!” he yelled over, sounding strained. “But it won’t give us back the shields in time.”

“Do it!” Allura watched the temperature climb and the altitude drop. If they kept falling like this they would start losing too much oxygen, and even if they survived the burn of the atmosphere without the shields they wouldn’t survive the collision with the planet’s surface.

Coran hit the button. The shock that ran through the castle as the thrusters activated that would have almost thrown them over again if Allura hadn’t planted her feet firmly on the floor. She gave the thrusters maximum power and let out a relieved breath as she saw them ascend from the planet, exiting the stratosphere.

“Is the crystal alright?” she asked while she scanned the readings frantically. The ship settled in a comfortable orbit around the planet.

“I believe so.”

“Are communications functional?”

Coran didn’t say anything for a moment. Then he sighed. “No,” he said, “but the mice can fix that.”

There was an answering chatter of squeaks and chirps from the mice, who had hidden inside Coran’s pockets during the chaos, and they jumped out to help.

Five minutes later communications were up again, but the paladins were nowhere in range.

“I can locate them,” Allura said, trying to quench the panic in her chest. “I just need some time...” She could do this. She had done it once and she could do it again.

She whirled around to exit the room and make preparations when a new alert flashed over the screens. Her heart hammered in her chest as she turned back.

“Princess,” Coran said, breathless and scared, “the planet – they’re hailing us.”


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm so, so sorry for the long delay between chapters. i started school again and it's honestly been a whirlwind of exams and new social stuff
> 
> this was originally just going to be a project over the summer but now i'm not even sure i'm going to get to finish it before season 2 starts. i am however hoping that i'm gonna get everyone reunited before the end of january because i'm stubborn haha.

 

Pidge’s house wasn’t too far from the Garrison headquarters and still a good way outside the next city. The desert loomed on one side and on the other, one could just barely make out the city lights in the distance.

There was no reason to hide anymore – and especially not out here – so they landed the lions right in front of the house. They hadn‘t even left their cockpits yet when Pidge‘s mother was already out of the house, standing right outside the open door, waiting for the both of them.

“Mom!” Pidge sprinted towards her and was met with open arms.

“I’m glad you came,” she said.

“I promised,” Pidge said and smiled as she stepped back.

“You did, but I wasn’t going to hold you to it,” her mother said.

Pidge had to avert her gaze, her eyes and chest stinging. She knew she had hurt her mother, but she was only just realizing how much of her trust she had lost with what she had done.

“Mom, I’m sorry...”

“It’s okay,” she said. “I just wish… I wish you would have told me.”

Pidge nodded. She was going to disappoint her another time by leaving again, but at least this time she would get to say goodbye. And maybe she would be able to keep in contact with her mother – but only if she was lucky. Only if it was safe.

“Mrs Holt,” Shiro said and she turned to him with her eyebrows raised.

“Please, Shiro. How often are we going to have to do this?” She smiled. “Call me Leia.”

He grimaced and Pidge had to laugh. “You know she won’t let you get out of this another time.”

“Leia,” Shiro tried again. “I’m sorry about everything that happened.”

“It wasn’t your fault,” she said and put one hand on his shoulder, one on Pidge’s back. “Come inside, come inside...”

They followed her into the kitchen and Pidge stopped in the doorway for a moment to take it in. It had barely changed.

Her mother looked at her from where she was handling a teapot at the kitchen counter. “Your room is still the same, too.”

For a moment she wanted to go upstairs, to see her room, to lie down on her bed and close her eyes – just for a few minutes. But instead she let the urge pass and stepped into the kitchen. She couldn’t allow herself this selfishness right now. She had already been selfish enough by coming here, and she knew it.

She sat down at the kitchen table next to Shiro and her mother handed her a cup of tea in her favorite mug.

“Mom,” Pidge started to complain but Leia raised a hand and Pidge immediately closed her mouth again. She took the mug.

“I know you don‘t have a lot of time. But please, give me these five minutes with you.”

Pidge smiled weakly. “Okay.” She couldn’t say no to her mother. Not now. Later, she would have to. But not now.

Leia handed Shiro a mug, too, and then sat down opposite them.

“How dangerous is this… I want to call it mission… you’re doing?”

“Very,” Shiro said at the same time as Pidge said “It _is_ a mission!”

Leia sighed and closed her eyes for a moment.

Pidge grimaced and took a sip of her tea. It was too hot and she knew she would still feel her burnt tongue hours later, but her mother’s frightened face would stay with her for longer.

“I don’t want to lie to you,” Shiro said after a few seconds of tense silence, and Leia opened her eyes again. “We’ve had a few run-ins with the Galra already, and they weren’t pretty. We’ve had to fight for our lives. But it made us stronger. We wouldn’t do this if we didn’t have to, but unfortunately we do. We could walk away, if we really wanted to, even. But the entire universe is in danger, and I could never walk away from that.”

“And I don’t want to, either,” Pidge added.

Leia took a sip from her tea, looking deep in thought.

Shiro and Pidge exchanged a glance. Pidge didn't need her mother's approval – but it would be nice to have it. Leaving home again knowing that she had someone in her corner would be an immense weight off her chest.

“We're so close to finding Dad and Matt, too,” she said. “I wouldn't have stayed away from you for so long if I didn't think I was going to find them. But I do. I still do.”

“I just wish you didn't have to shoulder this burden on your own...”

“She doesn't,” Shiro said quickly. “I want to find them, too. And the others love Pidge so much, they'd go to the end of the universe to find her family again.”

“This isn't your fight, Mom,” Pidge said. “But it's ours.”

“It _is_ my fight,” Leia said loudly, her eyes suddenly afire. “My entire family is out there, fighting for their lives and freedom and I'm supposed to sit at home and do nothing?”

Pidge groaned. “Mom, that's not... that's not what I meant. There's just no reason for another person to be in danger. We all need a home to come back to – and someone to keep the Garrison in check, honestly. I don't trust Iverson.”

Leia's hands clenched around her own cup of tea. “We used to be friends with him... But after all of this, I don't think he deserves my trust or respect anymore.”

“Pretend you're willing to work with him,” Pidge said. “For me. Please... We need someone on the inside. Take my place.”

Leia chuckled a little. “It's going ot be hard to take your place, since he knows who I am and also I am much older.”

“Yes, but you know him. That's your in. _And_ you come across much less angry than me.”

“That's because I compartmentalize my emotions,” Leia said and drank some more tea.

“Now I know where you get it from,” Shiro said and looked at Pidge. “You just haven't learned your mother's ways yet.”

“Oh my god.” Pidge rolled her eyes. But something in this conversation rang true and she felt strangely proud.

“I'll do what I can with Iverson,” Leia said. “But you'll have to bring back Matt and your father.”

“Deal,” Pidge said.

She was almost done with her tea and that meant she would have to say goodbye soon.

  
  


  
  


* * *

 

  
  


  
  


Lance woke up with his head pillowed on Hunk‘s chest and Keith‘s face too close to his, his arms wrapped around Hunk tightly.

For a moment he just wanted to stay like this and ignore that they were alone on some unknown planet, lost somewhere in a different galaxy; but then his survival instinct – and his hunger – set in.

He sat up.

At least this planet had more vegetation than the one he and Hunk had originally landed on. There had also been some minor life forms, according to the lions, but nothing dangerous. Or, well, they hadn't seen anything dangerous yet so Lance chose to believe that there was nothing out there that would kill him.

He considered waking Hunk and Keith but they looked like they could use some more sleep, so he grabbed his armor as silently as he could and tiptoed out of the cockpit.

It was mid-morning – or what counted as mid-morning on this planet – with the sun still a few hours away from its zenith in the sky. It was warmer than Lance was used to from Earth and the climate controlled Castle of Lions, but only by a few degrees so he was sure he would be able to take it. So he took off into what looked similar to a jungle, except with more red and blue vegetation than green. _Something_ in there had to be edible.

It didn't take him long to find a tree that carried beautiful, purple fruits close enough to the ground that he could reach them. He plucked one off its branch and had it halfway to his mouth to take a bite when he paused. How was he supposed to know if it wasn't poisonous to him?

He weighed it in his hand and sniffed it, but it didn't have a very poignant smell. In fact, it almost smelled like nothing. Weren't poisonous things to smell either good or very bad?

His stomach growled again and he groaned.

He would just have to play Russian roulette with this fruit.

He took a bite. It tasted watery, closer to a cucumber than its outerior had indicated, but not bad. After the first few tentative bites he devoured it quickly and hoped for the best.

It didn't seem to be dangerous – or at least not immediately. After he was finished he plucked a few more of the fruits he could reach and then ventured further into the forest, nibbling at another one. He would have to find enough to get breakfast for the other guys, too.

The jungle seemed to be rich in fruits, but the further Lance went inside the more restless he became – he felt like he was being followed. So finally he turned around, muttering “You'll be fine” to himself.

He kept hearing rustling behind him but whenever he looked there was nothing there. Still, it prompted him to walk faster.

When he had crossed about half of the distance back to where he had left Hunk and Keith he heard a low growl behind him.

This time he didn't even have to look. He just started sprinting.

Maybe he would make it back to the lions in time. Hell, maybe Blue would even come to his rescue. He clung to that hope, calling for his lion in his mind. They had a connection, right? This should work.

He reached the edge of the woods, the sound of paws on the ground close behind him, and for the first time since he had started running, he turned.

A giant beast that resembled tiger, easily twice his size, was hot on his heels.

Lance screamed. He dropped half of his loot and tore through the last trees, reaching the clearing they had landed on.

“Hunk!” he screamed.

He wasn't going to make it.

A deafening roar sounded from above and for a moment Lance thought it was the sound of his death, until he realized that Blue was swooping in from the sky, ramming into the beast pursuing Lance.

The creature screeched and Lance, still a hundred meters away from the other lions, whirled around to watch what was happening.

Blue had landed between him and the tiger, and for a moment the scenery seemed like it was frozen, until Blue roared again and the beast turned tail and ran back towards the treeline.

“Holy fuck!” Keith and Hunk came sliding out of Yellow's mouth.

“Are you okay?!”

“I'm okay,” Lance said, not quite believing himself. He looked down at the fruit left in his arms. “I... brought you breakfast.”

“Fuck, Lance,” Keith mumbled and plucked the fruit from his arms. He looked pale. “You could have woken us.”

“Would you have?” Lance shot back.

Keith frowned. “I don't know.”

“Just eat your damn breakfast,” Lance said, stomping into Yellow's cockpit. They could have at least said thank you.

Hunk followed him. “Hey, he didn't mean it was your fault,” he said.

“No, I get it,” Lance said. “It was stupid. But I almost _died_ , you could have saved the lecture for later.”

“I'm glad nothing happened to you,” Hunk said.

Keith had finally come inside, too, and handed them both fruit. “Thanks for the breakfast.”

“You're welcome,” Lance grumbled.

At least the fruit didn’t turn out to be poisonous and if they managed to take off in the next twenty minutes no one would end up dying.

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

Allura steeled herself and answered the hailing call coming from the planet below.

“This is Princess Allura of Altea. We mean you no harm.”

There was an audible gasp and then a face flickered into view. A soft face with short hair and surprised eyes.

“Princess Allura…. I heard the rumors, but I didn’t _dare_ hope.”

A glimmer of hope flared up in Allura. Maybe this planet wasn’t Galra territory yet. Maybe they were too far out of their reach, maybe they were resisting.

“I’m the head council of this planet, Jnar. It is an honor to meet you.”

“No, it’s a pleasure to meet _you_ , Jnar,” Allura said. “We must have frightened you, I apologize. Our wormhole travel was compromised and we had some technical difficulties.”

Jnar tilted their head in an acknowledgment. “I understand. Would you like to land on the planet?”

For a moment Allura weighed the options, but ultimately she knew what the safer, more sensible choice was. “We have enough capacity to remain in orbit, which is where we would like to stay, if that is alright with you.” This way they would have the option to meet the inhabitants on the planet below while also being able to get away fast if something should happen.

“Of course,” Jnar said.

“I would however like to come down to the surface to meet you in person,” Allura added.

“Princess!” Coran hissed. “You can’t-”

Allura waved him off and shot him a glare. She was able to make her own decisions.

“It would be a special honor to meet you in person,” Jnar said. “I can assure that no harm will come to you down here. There are no… hostile beings among us.” They seemed to be hesitant to mention the Galra outright, but Allura caught their meaning.

“I will be down shortly,” she smiled.

The connection ended.

“Princess, you can’t be serious,” Coran said, sternly. “Let me go. Or at least take me with you.”

“I need you to stay here with the ship and keep up your efforts to try contacting the Paladins,” she said. “I will meet the people of this planet. It is the least I could do.”

She didn’t say anything about the hope burning in her chest.

Instead she looked at Coran intently for a few moments until he nodded. “Understood.”

Then she strode out of the command center towards the pod bay.

She changed into her suit in swift movements and got onto her pod, taking a deep breath under her helmet. Something important was about to happen, she could feel it.

Not wanting to bother Coran with it she triggered the release on the bay doors herself and shot out into the outer space of the planet. She wasn’t far from the atmosphere, the sphere of the planet spread out in shades of blue, brown and purple beneath her.

Being out here like this, exposed and free had always been fun for her. It was exhilarating and one of the few times where she felt like she could act as young as she was. All her problems, her responsibilities just fell away, unimportant in the vacuum of space.

Even the slight burn of entering the atmosphere wasn’t painful to her. She welcomed it.

  
  


She steered towards the town the hailing frequency had come from and landed outside the building she had traced it too.

The planet was similar to how she remembered Altea.

The vegetation she had seen on her way down was rich and the gravity light enough for her to feel right at home. She took a deep breath, squared her shoulders and opened her visor. The air smelled different and for a moment sadness threatened to crush her, but she shrugged it off. This wasn’t Altea; she had a mission.

The doors to the building opened and a short, four-legged person, whose face Allura recognized as Jnar’s, stepped over the threshold.

“Princess Allura!”

Allura smiled and walked towards them. “You must be Jnar.”

“Indeed. I’m glad you made it here safely. Welcome to ---” They said something Allura couldn’t understand, a word that had a few M sounds and static clicking in it. She blinked. Jnar laughed, obviously used to the reaction. “It is what we call our little planet in our language. You may call it Moon, or Lunar, whatever you like. We do not get a lot of visitors, but the reaction is always the same.”

“I would like to attempt to learn the name of your home anyway,” Allura said.

Jnar laughed again. “Very well.” They repeated the word.

Allura tried to recreate it, but the syllables were already slipping from her mind.

“You are quick,” Jnar said. “But not quick enough. Keep trying.”

Allura nodded. “I will.”

“Would you like something to eat?” Jnar asked. “I have informed the town council about your arrival and they are eager to meet you and I’m sure you will be… excited, to meet them, too. There is so much to discuss.”

“I… Yes, that sounds good,” Allura said. Something about Jnar’s phrasing seemed odd. It wasn’t worrying, but rather fanned the curiosity in Allura. There was something about this planet that kept her here.

Jnar inclined their head towards the building. “Follow me,” they said.

So Allura did. They stepped through the wooden doors of the simple stone building, entering the single room that it contained – more of a hall, made for gatherings and decision making. Not grand, but official nonetheless.

A group of people – seven, as Allura counted – were standing in front of a table, waiting. Goosebumps crept up her arms under her suit.

They all nodded at her, smiling. “Welcome.”

“Thank you for inviting me,” Allura said and attempted a smile herself.

A young-looking woman stepped forward and Allura’s breath stopped in her chest, the smile falling from her face.

She saw a long face with all too familiar markings, the skin the same shade as Allura’s, framed by shoulder-length hair and characteristic pointed ears. Intelligent, deep purple eyes were looking at her and quickly filling with tears.

Another Altean.

“Who are you?” Allura choked out.

  
  


  
  


* * *

 

  
  


  
  


Pidge had finished her tea. She kept clinging to the mug like a life line, but she had been catching Shiro’s looks for the past ten minute and she knew that it was time to leave.

“Mom,” she said and put down the mug. “It’s time.”

Leia sighed. “I know.”

Pidge rose from her seat. “I’ll come back. You know that, right? I promised to get Dad and Matt back and that’s what I’m gonna do. Doesn’t matter how long it takes, but I’ll bring them back to you. They won’t have to fight anymore.”

“I believe you. I trust you,” Leia said and stepped towards her daughter, wrapping her in a tight hug. “I love you.”

“Mom,” Pidge choked out, barely holding back the tears.

Finally she extracted herself from her mother. She wasn’t going to make this harder than it had to be.

“We have to go,” she said quietly.

Leia hugged Shiro, too.

“Be careful out there.”

“We will,” Shiro said. He put an arm around Pidge. “Let’s go.”

“Bye,” Pidge said, still quiet, then consciously strengthened her voice. “Keep your eyes out for my lion. I’ll be back.”

“I will. I’ll see you again, sweetheart.”

Pidge already knew she would spend hours in the comms center after returning to the castle, trying to set up a secure line to her mother. She didn’t care if Allura didn’t like it. She didn’t even care if Allura would forbid it.

She would talk to her mother again. She would see her mother again.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yes, i named pidge's mom leia. it was gonna be leah originally, because i started this chapter like five days ago, but with the news of carrie fisher's death i thought, fuck it, let's make the reference a tribute.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OKAY so my plan for this fic is to have one more chapter after this, and then follow up with two separate oneshots set in this canon-divergent universe

“Where do we go?” Hunk asked.

“Anywhere,” Keith said. “We just have to stay on the move.”

“And for what? Faith? How are we going to find the others?” Lance stared at the holo map forlornly. Nothing but star systems he didn’t know and no trace of the castle, Pidge or Shiro.

“I don’t know,” Keith said. There was a crackle in the comms, or his voice broke, Lance couldn’t be sure. “But we can’t stay here.”

“We’ll find them,” Hunk said. “The lions found each other before. They can do it again. And with enough time, Allura can find us, too.”

“But what if-” Lance started.

“Don’t you dare say it,” Hunk cut in.

_What if they were captured._

_What if they’re injured._

_What if they’re dead._

But Lance dutifully didn’t say anything and kept his eyes on the stars ahead of them.

 

* * *

 

 

The other Altean smiled. “I’m sorry for startling you,” she said. “I’m sure this must be quite a shock to you.”

Allura couldn’t do anything but stare.

“My name is Malin.”

Jnar came up beside Allura again. “Please, sit. I’m sure this surprise has you frozen.” They motioned at a chair at the table.

Allura walked over to it like in trance and sat. As soon as she had settled into the chair, movement came into the council and everyone sat down amidst the rustling of fabric brushing together.

“Where did you come from?” Allura asked Malin breathlessly, finally able to form words. She was aware that she was being rude to the rest of the council, but she couldn’t bring herself to tear her gaze away from the young-looking Altean.

“Right here,” Malin said. “I was born here and I’ve lived here all my life. I’m only… half-Altean. My mother was a refugee from another part of this galaxy, my father a native of this moon.”

Allura swallowed. Other Alteans. She hadn’t thought about this possibility. She had thought she and Coran were the only ones. She had thought it had been too long – even though it had been no time to her at all.

“Are there more?” she asked. She barely registered the plates of food being carried in.

“I have a brother,” Malin said. “My mother told stories of other refugees, but they are scattered.”

“Where is your mother?”

Malin slightly shook her head. “She passed away two years ago. She was very old, for an Altean. She never saw Altea though.”

“It has been very long,” Allura mumbled. And as she said it she realized that while she wasn’t as alone in the universe as she had thought, there was still no one beside Coran and her who still remembered Altea the way it had been. There was no one left who had experienced the beauty of her home planet.

But maybe there was still a bit of culture left.

And the people were the most important part, either way.

Seeing another person with the same features made her chest seize up and her hands shake. She may be lonely, but at least she wasn’t alone.

“You must tell me everything that you know,” she said.

Malin nodded. “I will, of course, I will. And maybe you will tell me… things. What you remember about Altea.”

“I remember everything,” Allura said firmly.

And maybe, even if she couldn’t indulge in trading memories, she could at least share hers. Paint the washed out stories that Malin had been told with the colours that she remembered, because she had been there. Give generations of refugees back a little of what they had lost.

 

* * *

 

 

Pidge and Shiro had been flying through space for what felt like weeks.

In reality it had only been a day, but with no trace of the others and nothing but unending space in front of them, Pidge had soon grown frustrated and bored.

“I want to go home,” they said.

“You can’t,” Shiro said. He sounded clipped and Pidge couldn’t blame him.

“No, I mean… The castle,” Pidge said, knocking against their helmet impatiently.

Their head answered with a buzzing pain.

“Oh,” Shiro made.

Pidge looked at their hand and wondered when they had developed this particular bad habit. Then they shook their head to get rid of the buzzing.

“Yeah,” they mumbled. “I miss them, you know? I don’t miss the fighting, but I’m… not just in it for my family anymore.”

For a few seconds there was silence before Pidge gathered up the courage to say what was threatening to roll off their tongue anyway.

“Or maybe my family is bigger now.”

“Pidge...”

“Don’t say a thing, I don’t wanna hear it,” they said quickly. They did want to hear what Shiro had to say, at least a little, but their heart was already beating way too hard in their chest and there was better things to do right now.

Like stare at the unending depths of space.

 

 

There was a beep.

“What was that?” Shiro asked.

Pidge was already frantically scanning their equipment. They drew in a sharp breath.

“Holy shit! It’s the castle.”

They stared at the point that had shown up on the outer rim of their map.

“ _What.”_

“Do you see it?”

“I see it, I see it!” Shiro sounded frantic with happiness.

“Boy, that’s far away...” Pidge mumbled, zooming in on the quadrant and sighing at the coordinates and unknown names. “It would take us days to get there, even with the lions’ speed.”

“Well if they’re on the radar we should be able to contact them,” Shiro said.

“I’m already trying,” Pidge said, hands flying over their controls, “but with our luck...”

They amped up the signal range and turned down the quality. Now if only the castle was on the right frequency...

“Hello?”

“Coran?”

Pidge silently fist-pumped and would have loved to hug Shiro right now, but he was over in his own lion.

“Pidge? Shiro? Oh, I am so happy to hear your voices.”

“Likewise,” Pidge grinned. “Coran, are you and Allura alright? Is she there?”

“We are fine,” Coran said. “She’s currently meeting with the people of the planet we are orbiting but I’ll notify her right away.”

“Please do,” Shiro said.

“Just a tiny bit off patience,” Coran said.

The connection shut off.

Pidge let out a scream.

They were going home.

 

* * *

 

 

“Princess,” Coran’s voice came in over her earpiece. “Princess, I’m receiving two of the lions.”

Something like a jolt of electricity went through Allura and she immediately sat up straighter. “I’ll be right there,” she said.

She smiled at Malin apologetically. “I’m so sorry, I have to attend to something.”

Malin nodded. “Go. I know you must have important tasks in this time of crisis.”

An ongoing, ten-thousand year long crisis. Allura rose from her seat.

“I’ll return and give you all the attention you deserve.”

She hurried out of the building and towards where she had left her pod. She strapped on her helmet quickly and started the pod.

“Who is it?” she asked Coran as she took off from the planet’s surface.

“Pidge and Shiro, princess.”

Allura activated her shields and sped through the atmosphere as her heart hammered somewhere high in her throat. She didn’t know why she was so anxious and excited.

Maybe this day was just a little too much.

 

 

She left her pod in the bay without securing it properly and took the elevator to the control center, sprinting over to the comm station.

“Pidge!” she almost-yelled into the link that Coran had hurriedly pulled up again, before composing herself again.

There was laughter from the other end of the line. “Hello Allura.”

“Miss us?” Pidge asked.

Allura could only imagine the wide grin.

“Slightly,” she said.

“Well, we can’t wait to get back,” Shiro said.

“And tell you about all the shit that happened to us,” Pidge added.

“I can’t wait to hear about it,” Coran said drily.

Allura waved at him and took the two steps over to activate a wormhole.

“You two should be good to go in a minute or so,” she said.

Her head was spinning.

 

* * *

 

 

They watched as the wormhole opened up in front of them.

It looked less fascinating and much more scary than the first time Shiro had seen one of its kind. It loomed up dark and uninviting in front of them and he had to remind himself that what was waiting at the other end was the only home he had now.

“I don’t know how good I feel about going through one of these things again,” Pidge mumbled.

“I don’t think you really have a choice,” Shiro said but he didn’t feel much more confident himself.

“I could still go back to earth.”

Shiro snorted. They both knew it wasn’t going to happen.

“Let’s go,” he said.

He gave Black a little nudge and the lion took the lead in flying into the wormhole. For a second Shiro felt panic rising in him as the black of nothingness closed in on him but he closed his eyes and took deep breaths. It would pass.

“We’ll be fine,” Pidge said.

“I know.” At least for the moment. This wormhole wasn’t corrupted. They had done jumps like this many times without getting flung into random places.

 

Then the light was back.

Shiro hadn’t thought there was anything darker than deep space, but that had been before being captured by the Galra and before he had learned how to travel through wormholes. Now he knew the truth.

He saw the expanse of the planet and the sun of this system, further away, and there, hovering in front of them, was the castle.

“Welcome back,” he heard Coran’s voice say. “Your usual shuttle bays are ready for you.”

“Thank you, Coran,” Shiro said.

Pidge was suspiciously quiet but Shiro could basically hear them vibrate with excitement over the comms.

As they passed the shuttle bay doors, Shiro heard them exhale in relief.

It really did feel like coming home.

 

* * *

 

 

If Pidge had thought the days alone on Earth were bad, or the time alone with Shiro in space, the elevator ride up to the command center was proving them wrong.

“Stop fidgeting,” Shiro said softly.

Pidge gave him a stare and waved their hands in his face. He could really stand five more seconds of their fidgeting and then they would leave him alone.

The doors of the lift opened and Pidge didn’t even take a second to take in the command center again, instead they jumped out of the elevator. Once their eyes had found Allura they headed straight for her.

“Pidge,” Allura said.

Pidge flung themselves at Allura, across the three meters separating them. They could hear Shiro laughing behind them but they ignored him. They needed this right now.

“I didn’t think I’d be so happy to see you again.”

Allura closed her arms around them for a moment. “I missed you too.”

After they let go she smiled at Shiro. “It’s good to have you back, too.”

Shiro shrugged. “Good to be home.”

Allura inspected the thin bandage around Pidge’s head. “What happened?”

Pidge only waved. “Nothing, really. I hit my head when we went down. It’s much better already.”

Allura pursed her lips. “It’s not nothing. We should get you in a pod and heal you up.”

“No,” Pidge said, immediately. “Not before we get the others back.”

“Oh.” Allura took a step back. “I just thought...”

Pidge sighed. “I know, I just… I don’t want to waste time.”

“I promise it wouldn’t be a waste of time,” Allura said.

“It really wouldn’t be,” Shiro added. “You need to heal. And to rest.”

“Uh, that’s a lot, coming from you.” Pidge crossed their arms and looked from Shiro to Allura. They couldn’t believe the two of them wanted to take them out of the fight right now. This was important to them. They could get their head fixed up when they had found Lance, Hunk and Keith.

Allura narrowed her eyes at Shiro. “Are you injured, too?”

He shook his head. “No, just… being back on Earth took a lot.”

“He basically told the Garrison to go fuck themselves, it was great,” Pidge grinned.

Allura blinked. “You were back on… your home planet?”

Pidge nodded. “Yeah, we’ll tell you all about it later. But first… the others.”

“Do you have any idea where they are?” Shiro asked.

Allura shook her head. “No, um, actually I got a little… sidetracked. I went to the surface of the planet below to meet the inhabitants, since we so rudely showed up in their orbit and I um...” She took a deep breath and Pidge waited with big eyes and even bigger ears. “There is another Altean.”

“ _What_?” Coran squeaked.

Pidge bit their lip as Allura swiveled around. “I meant to tell you but you called me back here before you could!”

“There are survivors?” Coran asked. “Princess, you must let me meet them.”

“I still know basically nothing,” Allura said. “I was talking to them… her when you two showed up.”

Pidge and Shiro exchanged a look.

“You should invite her up here,” Shiro said.

“I don’t know...”

“I think it’s a good idea, too,” Pidge said.

“It will have to wait in any case,” Allura said. “The priority has to be to find the other paladins.”

“Finally you’re seeing sense,” Pidge mumbled.

Allura scoffed. “I still think you should get your head checked but I know how stubborn you are so we’ll just have to overwhelm you in numbers once we have the other three back.”

Shiro whistled through his teeth. “You show them.”

Pidge stuck out their tongue at both of them.

“Alright then,” Coran said. “Let’s get moving so we can clear all this up…. _Another Altean_? I can’t believe it.”

“Give us a few doboshes,” Allura said.

Pidge laughed. “Well, aren’t you optimistic?”

Allura shrugged. “It worked with you, and if I try to look for the lions that will boost the range exponentially. It might just work.”

“So much guess-work, princess,” Shiro teased.

She raised her eyebrows at him and waved him off. “Just you wait.”

 

Allura closed her eyes and spread her arms, the holographic map of the universe spreading out around her and above her.

Pidge watched with baited breath.

They couldn’t see them. What if they weren’t there?

Shiro slightly jostled their shoulder and they looked up at him. He smiled encouragingly, mouthing “be brave” at them. Pidge bit their lip, grinned a little, and looked back at Allura.

The stars around her were moving, swirling out of view and making place for new constellations.

“There,” Allura said. “Oh, that’s odd...”

Pidge opened their mouth and then thought better of it. Interrupting Allura seemed like a bad idea.

A system came into halt in front of Allura and she opened her eyes again. “There they are.”

Three colorful dots were shimmering just outside the system, near the smallest planet. They were moving ever so slightly, crawling in what seemed like the right direction – but they were far, far, too far, away.

Pidge looked at Shiro and bumped their leg into his.

Allura smiled at the both of them. “Do you want to do the honors?”

“It would be my pleasure,” Shiro said, already on the way to his station. Pidge followed hastily.

Shiro sat down and pulled up a comms channel before putting in the coordinates provided by Allura’s map. Pidge stood behind him, their hands itching to do it themselves. They knew Shiro was perfectly capable, that Shiro deserved this, but they felt horribly useless and unmoving.

Allura had hurried over to her own station.

Shiro touched the right button on the holo console and took a deep breath.

“Hey, guys.”

There was a gasp and then… “Oh my god!” “Shiro?!” “I told you guys!”

“I see you’re all still capable of talking, at least,” Allura said drily. Pidge bit their lip and suppressed a giggle.

“Allura!” Hunk said over the line. “Oh man, so you are all okay and at the castle.”

“Hey!” Pidge cut in quickly, unable to keep quiet any longer. “Let me tell you, it was quite a journey back here...”

“One we’d very much like to make, too,” Keith said.

“As in, back to the castle,” Lance added.

“Yeah, we got that...” Pidge rolled their eyes at Shiro and Allura.

“How close are we to you?” Hunk asked.

“I’m sending you our coordinates right now,” Shiro said.

“You’re in he Tooan system,” Allura added. “How did you even end up _there_?”

“Oh that’s what it’s called?” Hunk asked at the same time as Keith grumbled: “Ask that the wormhole...”

Pidge lifted themselves up on the back of Shiro’s chair, much to his dismay, while he sent the coordinates. “So, you guys have a nice time?” They felt giddy with happiness.

“Oh yeah, excellent,” Lance said sarcastically. “Almost got eaten by a giant tiger.”

“Almost burnt up in a sun,” Keith added.

“I can’t complain, really,” Hunk said. “Except that it was scary and that I missed you guys.”

Pidge couldn’t believe that in just a few minutes, they would have them back. That they’d get to hug them all again.

“We can do all this when you’re here again. I’ll open a wormhole for you,” Allura said.

“You can do that?” Lance asked.

“One portal here, one at your location. It is the basic premise of a wormhole.”

Pidge had to stifle another laugh.

“No, I mean, everything’s fully functional and none of you are hurt?”

“We’re _fine_ ,” Allura said. “Now, I understand you may not want to go through a wormhole again but there’s really no other way.”

“I mean,” Hunk mumbled, “if there’s a way to not do that I would very much prefer it.”

Allura groaned and shut off the communications line abruptly before turning away to open a wormhole.

Pidge looked out of the giant windows to see it form, blackness spreading out over the stars that had just been visible, the edges of the hole glittering invitingly.

And they realized that the wormhole was just a tool, that it didn’t make sense to be afraid of it when Haggar and her magic were so far away.

The wormhole was created through science, which sometimes was kind of closely related to magic. But it made more sense, and Pidge could rationalize it.

They watched as three lions appeared in the wormhole, and smiled.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> okay i know i said this was going to be the last chapter but while writing i noticed that narratively it would make more sense to write one of the plannet oneshots as a chapter, so we're back to the originally planned 8.
> 
> enjoy :P

 

Nothing held them in the command center. Not even Coran or Allura wanted to stay and observe the ship – they all went down to the main hangar to wait for the remaining three paladins to arrive.

Pidge elbowed Shiro when they stepped into the elevator side by side. “You excited to see him again?” they asked and winked at him.

Shiro rolled his eyes. He knew exactly what they meant but he figured he should bite his tongue and keep quiet so he wouldn’t feed into their teasing. Then he thought, what the hell, what was the point in ignoring it? They had all been violently separated from each other; being excited about seeing Keith again was normal.

“Of course,” he said and couldn’t stop the smile from appearing on his face.

  


  


When they arrived and stepped out of the elevator, the red, blue and yellow lions were already in the hangar and the big doors had shut behind them, despite the high-speed elevator. None of the paladins had exited their lions yet.

Shiro held his breath for a second, and he wasn’t even sure why.

Then all the robot cats’ mouths opened at once and Shiro wondered if they had coordinated it. If they had counted to three together, so no one would be first and no one would be last; so they could enter the castle together again, like they had so obviously done with the lions already.

It had something awe-inspiring and breathtaking as Hunk, Keith and Lance came walking into the hangar from their lions. They looked like soldiers returning from a mission. They looked like they came from the stars.

The moment broke the second they spotted the others. Hunk whooped and Pidge next to Shiro threw both their fists into the air. Lance grinned widely.

Keith started sprinting towards Shiro the second he set foot onto castle ground.

Shiro caught him in his arms and didn’t let go again.

“I missed you,” Keith whispered into the crook of his neck.

“I know,” Shiro said. “Me too.”

Oh, how he had missed him. It felt good to hold him again, to know that he was alright, to be able to see his face.

Eventually he let go of Keith reluctantly, aware that the others were there, too, and wanted to be welcomed back.

  


Shiro took a step back.

Hunk had scooped Pidge up and was swinging them around, both laughing loudly. And Lance was watching Keith.

Shiro blinked. Lance caught him looking and slightly cocked his head, as if he wanted to say something and didn’t know how – and that was a first. Usually Lance always had something to say. Too much, sometimes.

Lance started marching over to them, looking determined. Shiro carefully patted Keith’s side. “What’s up with him?” he asked.

Keith turned and looked in Lance’s direction, confusion written on his face. “I don’t know? We were getting along fine, actually.”

That seemed interesting to Shiro. Interesting and good. He had always figured that Keith and Lance could get along, even with their competitive natures, if they just got over themselves.

Then Lance surprised them all when he reached Shiro and Keith, and kissed Shiro square on the lips.

Shiro staggered back a little. The kiss was short, barely a peck, but it still threw him off balance.

Lance grinned at him apologetically. “Sorry, I just felt like it.”

Everyone stared at them. He shrugged.

“You don’t kiss me like that!” Hunk complained.

And with that the awkwardness had been broken and laughter filled the hangar. Shiro was sure that they would have to talk about this later but he definitely wasn’t angry at Lance.

He caught Keith watching him, a weird expression on his face.

“It’s okay,” Shiro told him.

Keith shrugged. “If you say so.”

They definitely would have to talk about this. Eventually.

  


More hugs with everyone followed, and even Allura joined in again, before she suggested that they go upstairs to the dining hall. To swap stories and welcome everyone back with a big meal.

  


  


* * *

 

  


  


Keith was so, so glad to be back with everyone.

He had grown to like Lance and Hunk, but the entire time he had been with them, he had felt off-kilter. Like he was still floating in space on his own.

He was even glad to have the food goo back, in all its weird tasting glory. At least it was something, and at least they didn’t have to risk their lives to get it.

He kept quiet during the first couple minutes of dinner and listened to Lance recount what had happened to them. He didn’t feel particularly inclined to explain how he had felt when he had been floating in the gravitational zone of a giant sun, just waiting to burn, waiting for something to happen.

So he ate his dinner and listened to Lance. Watched Lance. What he had done earlier had confused him, and he really wasn’t sure why Lance had done it; but then again he had been having trouble understanding Lance since they had met.

Finally it was Shiro’s turn to talk – and Keith was almost done with his food goo, same as Pidge and Hunk.

“We ended up on Earth,” Shiro said and Keith felt a pang in his chest. This wasn’t going to be a good tale. This was going to be worse than what he, Hunk and Lance had been through.

“Pidge got a head wound and I’m pretty sure they’re still concussed, but they’ve been refusing to be put into a cryo pod until you guys were back.”

Pidge pushed their bowl away. “I knew you’d do this!” they grumbled.

“You should get healed up,” Hunk said immediately.

“I agree,” Keith cut in, finally breaking his silence. If Pidge wasn’t at a hundred percent, all of them would suffer. Also concussions could have long-term consequences and even if the Garrison had treated them properly, which Keith doubted, the castle’s healing pods would make sure there was no residual damage.

Pidge pursed their lips and glared at both of them “Fine,” they said. “ _After_ we’re done here.”

When Keith looked back at Shiro, there was a smile playing around the corner’s of his mouth, as if he had expected this. Keith bit his lip so he didn’t have to grin. Of course Shiro would play the others against Pidge so Pidge would get the rest they needed and deserved. They all knew each other well enough.

“Continue,” Allura said to Shiro and Shiro nodded.

“We got, predictably, picked up by the Garrison.”

Keith listened to the rest of the story with growing horror. Realizing that Shiro had been back on earth, while he had been floating in space, their roles reversed, was jarring. Once upon a time Shiro had wanted to return to earth and had only been met with hostility and then, when he had been flung back to earth unwillingly, that hostility had been what had driven him away again.

Pidge, despite having been there, looked enraged and disgusted, and when Keith looked at Hunk and Lance, both of them looked furious, too.

“I always thought Iverson was at least... decent, somehow,” Lance said loudly. “But that he would do this? Shit.”

Shiro slightly shook his head. “There’s no use arguing about it now. It’s done. We’re going to alert them if there’s any suspicious Galra activity that could affect them.”

“More like they’ll come crying to us if there’s so much as a blip on their radar,” Keith spat, folding his arms. He could already see it coming.

“That’s our job, though,” Shiro sighed. “We form Voltron to help the Universe. Doesn’t matter if we don’t like some of the inhabitants of that particular planet.”

“Doesn’t mean we have to do everything the Garrison says,” Lance said, just as angrily as Keith felt.

“Our families live there,” Hunk intercepted unhappily.

“The Garrison sucks, but we’ll just have to deal with them for now,” Pidge said with a resigned sigh. “Until a better organization can be established.”

Hunk raised his eyebrows and looked at them in surprise. “You got big plans, huh?”

Pidge grinned and twirled their spoon between their fingers, their cheek resting on their hand. “Oh man, once this Galra shit is over I’m going to revolutionize the space exploration and travel organization on earth.”

“I’m right there with you.” Hunk’s face split into a grin.

“That’s a project for the far future, though,” Lance said. He looked at Allura and Coran. “What about you? What happened with the castle?”

Allura waved dismissively. “Oh, nothing much. We got flung out of the wormhole, similar to you, and almost crashed into this planet but got the engines stabilized just in time. Then we worked on getting the communications channels back up and I… went down to meet the locals.” She paused there and Keith leaned forward instinctively. He saw Pidge fidget excitedly. This part had to contain something really interesting if Allura was so blasé about the rest of her experiences.

Allura took a deep breath. “There is another Altean.”

Immediately, all hell broke loose. As it was wont to with five excitable paladins.

“What!” Lance shrieked.

“What’s their name?” Hunk wanted to know.

Pidge, remarkably calm – calm enough that Keith figured they had known about this – asked: “Can we meet them?”

Allura held her hands up, obviously overwhelmed by the responses, but laughing nonetheless. “One after the other, paladins!” She waited until they had settled down before she continued. “Her name is Malin, she is the daughter of an Altean refugee – apparently there is several groups of them out there in the Galaxy.”

She was talking animatedly, her face glowing. Keith could only imagine what it felt like to find out that some of her people weren’t dead after all, that some of her culture had survived.

“I would prefer if you could give me some more time with her before you meet her,” she said to Pidge.

Shiro said “Of course” with an understanding nod while Lance pouted. Keith rolled his eyes. They had better things to do than being impatient about meeting other Alteans. This was important to Allura.

  


  


* * *

 

  


  


They shuffled out of the dining hall to get some rest and Pidge was gleeful that amidst Allura’s reveal no one seemed to remember that they were supposed to go into a healing pod for their head.

Then they felt Hunk’s hand on their shoulder and he and Shiro caught up to them. “So, how about that cryo pod?”

Pidge grimaced. Spoken too soon. “Come on, guys, you know I hate those things.”

“I’ll literally throw you over my shoulder and carry you there,” Lance said, coming up behind them.

“No, thanks,” Pidge said and rolled their eyes. “I can walk on my own. You don’t need to gang up on me.”

They watched Allura’s retreating back – she knew exactly what she was doing, that traitor – and resigned themself to their fate with a sigh. They glared at everyone so they would stay back as they headed towards the cryo chamber. Only Hunk continued following them.

“I don’t need a watchdog,” they said and it came out a little sharper than they had wanted, dangerously close to a snap.

He shrugged. “I know, but someone has to activate the pod and keep an eye on it. You know how the castle is...”

Pidge scoffed. “Sure.”

Then again Hunk was their first pick out of everyone.

  


  


* * *

 

  


  


Hunk sat in front of the pod, his legs crossed, and watched Pidge’s face. They looked peaceful enveloped in the healing fluid, their hair swaying softly around their head.

He hoped that they would come out of it fully healed. Sure, they had said their head felt fine, but he knew how often any of them said they were fine when they were really not.

At least this way no more harm would come to Pidge.

  


  


“Still here?”

Hunk looked up to see Keith standing in the entrance, leaning against the huge door frame, dwarfed by it. He had changed into soft pants and a clean shirt, his hair still damp from his shower. Hunk wondered if he had ever seen him in anything but his paladin suit or his survival gear. He couldn’t remember, which probably meant no. This was a new side to Keith that Hunk was allowed to see.

It had been over an hour since Pidge had entered the pod, so the question was justified, but Hunk just shrugged.

“I don’t want to leave them alone,” he said.

“They wouldn’t even know you’re here,” Keith said pragmatically. He pushed off of the wall and walked over to Hunk, settling down on the floor next to him. “You don’t have to stand vigil here.”

Hunk grimaced at Keith’s choice of words. “I promised them I’d wait.”

“I figured you would have,” Keith sighed.

“It’s their birthday tomorrow,” Hunk said.

Keith blinked at him, stunned into silence for a moment. “Oh. I didn’t know that.”

Hunk shrugged. “I think only Shiro knows apart from me. Their constructed identity for the Garrison had a different date of birth of course, but yeah…”

“You’re a good friend,” Keith blurted. It sounded like he had said the first thing that came to mind.

“I have to be here when they wake up...” Hunk looked from Keith to Pidge’s still motionless face. “So in case they wake up after midnight – earth time – they won’t be alone.” He pointed to the digital watch he was carrying. He was still not entirely sure how Standard Universe Time correlated to time on Earth, and how Altean time measurements figured into it, so he had opted to go with what he knew.

“Doesn’t mean you can’t leave. They won’t get out of there for hours,” Keith said, motioning at the pod. For a moment Hunk felt anger flare up. Why didn’t Keith understand? Then Keith continued: “You can go and get some rest and I’ll watch them.”

Hunk stared at him. “Oh.”

Keith laughed a little, the corners of his eyes crinkling up. “Go take a shower, big guy. I’ll stay here.”

“You’re sure?” Hunk didn’t want to inconvenience him. He had chosen this, but Keith had no such obligation.

“We’re all friends, right?” Keith shrugged. “Of course I want to know that they’ll be okay, and if it makes you be able to get clean, that’s a bonus.”

Hunk rolled his eyes and elbowed Keith in the side. “I guess that’s the nicest way you could think of to tell me I smell, huh?”

Keith grinned. “Go!”

Hunk got up. He walked down the three steps but stopped at the doorway, looking back at Pidge and then letting his eyes trail back to Keith. And Keith wasn’t watching him go; Keith was watching Pidge – as he had promised.

“Hey, Keith?”

Keith turned slightly towards him, just enough to see him, Hunk was sure.

“Thanks. And you’re right. We’re family.”

A slight jolt went through Keith and for a second his eyes widened. Then he went back to his guarded expression, the one where he barely smiled. For a moment Hunk wanted to take his words back, but then he saw the slight tremor in Keith’s hand and he knew that he only needed a while to process the words.

Hunk decided to leave him alone with his feelings.

  


  


He was taking a quick shower, as he had promised Keith, when it hit him. If he could get the others to watch Pidge, he could whip up a birthday breakfast. Or at least a cake and a snack. _Something_ , if he already didn’t have a present.

He hurried to finish up his shower and then dressed quickly to run off towards the kitchen, only to skid to a halt when he had gotten halfway. They had barely any ingredients except food goo. He could work with food goo, but a cake couldn’t be exclusively that. For a moment he stood there, unsure of what to do, but there was really only one option.

With a sigh he steeled himself and turned around. He had to find Coran.

  


Surprisingly, Coran wasn’t in the control center – the ship was being held in orbit by the auto settings. So Hunk trudged off towards Coran’s quarters.

He knocked and the door chimed, letting him in.

“Oh, Hunk. Hello!” Coran said cheerily. He had been reading something, but the tablet switched off before Hunk could see anything. “What can I do for you?”

Hunk took a deep breath. “I have a favor to ask,” he said. “It’s Pidge’s birthday tomorrow, you see, and I was going to make them a cake and some food, and while food goo is great it’s not ideal for human birthdays, so...” Here he paused for a moment and regarded Coran, who was humming and nodding. Then he asked his actual question. “Do you think it would be alright if I went planet-side?”

Coran stroked his mustache. “Well,” he made, “the princess did ask you to remain in the castle but she also didn’t forbid you to visit the planet. She only wants you to get rested and asked that you do not meet Malin until they both are ready for that step, so I don’t see why you shouldn’t be able to go and get what you need from the planet’s surface if it doesn’t interfere.”

“Thank you!” Hunk beamed.

He took off again, hurrying back to Keith to let him know that he would go planet-side for a while.

Keith was leaning against the stairs, sitting on his jacket with his arms crossed behind his head and looked up to meet Hunk’s gaze when he entered. Hunk quickly explained things to him and ended with: “Do you wanna stay here or come with me and get some supplies?”

“You should take Lance or Shiro,” Keith shrugged. “I’m not good at shopping for food and I _did_ promise you to watch Pidge here.”

“And Lance always has a good nose for where to get food,” Hunk said pensively.

Keith grinned. “Or where to get into trouble.”

Hunk couldn’t really argue with that, and he didn’t feel like he had to defend Lance. Keith hadn’t said it with any malice in his voice.

Keith waved at him to get going. “You better make one hell of a cake.”

 


	8. Chapter 8

 

Going grocery shopping with Hunk had always been an experience for Lance. Going grocery shopping with Hunk on a foreign planet was a different thing altogether.

They had to steer clear of the town Allura was in, so they flew down to the next village over. Not in their lions of course, but a little pod, which was way less cool, but would keep unwanted attention low.

Still, Lance enjoyed spending some time together with his best friend. It should have been weird, considering that they had just basically been stranded alone together in outer space, but now that they were safe, Lance felt like a weight had been taken off his shoulders again.

They had left the pod at the edge of town and were striding through the waist-high grass side by side now. Lance ran his hand through the tall plants.

“It’s a lot like earth,” he mumbled.

“I think red grass is less common on earth,” Hunk said.

Lance laughed. “Still. It’s grass. And the sky is just as blue.”

They had reached the first houses yet, walking into the small village.

“I hope we’ll find everything we need,” Hunk worried.

“Something that’s close enough to flour, right?” Lance guessed. “Some fruit. Sugaresque stuff. Maybe eggs if you wanna go fancy.”

“Essentially, yes,” Hunk nodded. “But it all has to go together.”

Lance grinned. “Of course.” Shopping with Hunk was never easy, but it was always satisfying in a strange, warm and familiar kind of way.

 

It took them about three hours to find everything that Hunk needed but finally the only thing left was to find something that they could decorate the cake with before they headed back to the castle.

They were walking over to the last tiny store they hadn’t checked out yet. Lance’s arms were full with a net that contained cans of some kind of syrup and packages full of flour made of some kind of space-grain.

“Why _did_ you kiss Shiro, though?”

Lance sighed. Why were they still talking about this?

But he knew that Hunk was curious. _And_ he had waited until they were alone, so really, he couldn’t blame him.

“I just felt like it.”

Hunk raised his eyebrows. “Really? No long-harbored crush that you would’ve been going on and on about? That’s kind of out of character for you, dude.”

Lance hoisted the net full of cans higher into his arms. “Just because you haven’t noticed me flirting with someone doesn’t mean I didn’t.”

That seemed to stun Hunk into silence and Lance walked into the store with a grin.

 

Thankfully this store finally yielded some kind of baking decoration – not entirely what Lance was used to, but he was sure Hunk would make it work. He wasn’t a hundred percent sure if the stuff was edible for humans but worst case they could take it off the cake again before eating it.

So they made their way back to the pod.

Lance knew Hunk was still burning to ask questions but couldn’t find the right words, so he let him stew. There wasn’t much more to say, anyway.

 

 

* * *

 

 

There was a lot to do once they got back to the castle.

Hunk gave Lance instructions to go put their things in the kitchen while he headed off to go check on Pidge – and Keith.

He knew he might not be able to tear himself away once he went, but he was also sure that the responsibility of Pidge’s birthday would win out. He had a job to do, and he had to do it well.

Still he stuck his head into the chamber.

“Hey, we’re back!”

Keith had sprawled out on the floor and waved up at him. “Did you get everything you needed?”

“Yup. I’m gonna get started now. Did anything change?”

“Nah,” Keith shrugged and sat up. “But Coran thinks they might wake up soon. Also Shiro came by and he wants to help with the party planning.”

Hunk smiled. “Cool. I’ll go pick him up. Is he in his quarters?”

“Either that or he’s training because he’s a literal maniac.”

Hunk waved and turned to leave with one last look at Pidge. He was glad they were supposed to come back to them fully healed soon.

He didn’t think Shiro trained so much because he was a workaholic. It was probably more that he was restless and unable to sit still, and working out provided a good outlet for all that restless energy. But Hunk wasn’t sure if one day Shiro wouldn’t work himself to death.

 

 

Surprisingly, Shiro _was_ in his room, but he was definitely not sleeping. It looked like he had tried to read, then discarded the tablet. Hunk stood awkwardly in the doorway. There wasn’t enough to fuss with in the rooms they had, he was sure Shiro and he would agree on that. They had taken nothing with them when they had left Earth that first day and hadn’t had the chance to accumulate very much since then.

“I really wish I had more shirts to wear,” Shiro said and looked from Hunk to his wardrobe.

“Right there with you,” Hunk mumbled. “Maybe we can pick some up on this planet?”

Shiro sighed. “I sure hope so. Sorry… what’s up?”

“Well…” Hunk started, unsure of what to say for a moment, “I think Keith told you I’m making a cake for Pidge, right?”

Shiro nodded. “Yeah, I want to help.”

“Cool. I hadn’t really thought about anything surrounding the food and just assumed we’d have breakfast or lunch or whatever, after Pidge wakes up, in the dining hall.”

“You know,” Shiro closed his wardrobe, “I think it would be cool if we could have a little celebration on the moon’s surface.”

Immediately Hunk knew that this was what had been missing. “Dude, that’s a great idea!”

Two cakes. He was going to have to make two cakes.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

Pidge’s world came into focus again, slowly.

The first thing they noticed was the fluid around them falling away slowly and then the hissing sound of the opening pod. The second thing they noticed was how much lighter their head felt. The third thing they noticed was Hunk smiling at them, a smudge of flour on his cheek. Keith was standing next to him and he, too, was smiling.

“Welcome back,” Hunk said. “How are you feeling?” Then he looked at an object in his hand that seemed vaguely familiar, but Pidge’s eyes wouldn’t quite focus.

“Much better,” they said.

“So you do admit there was something wrong with your head,” Keith said.

Pidge sighed. “I wish you wouldn’t say it like that but I guess, yeah. Damn concussions.”

“Shiro will be glad to hear it,” Hunk mumbled.

“Ugh,” Pidge groaned, “He literally has no reason to feel guilty.”

“Doesn’t mean he won’t,” Keith said.

Pidge started walking towards the door. “I need a shower,” they announced. The pods made you feel fresh, and rested, and healed, but they did leave you feeling sticky.

“You have exactly fourteen minutes,” Hunk announced.

Pidge stopped and looked at him in confusion. “Why?”

He showed them the object and they finally realized that it was a clock – or fashioned closely enough to one. “Because it’ll be your birthday in now thirteen minutes and fifty-one seconds.”

They hadn’t forgotten. Pidge’s mom had said one sentence and Shiro had taken it and carried it to the others and run with it. Their heart soared.

“I can do it in four,” they grinned and skipped off.

 

It took them six, but that included getting dressed again.

They weren’t sure where the others needed them to be, since they had run off without really waiting for a reply from Keith and Hunk, and there was no one waiting in front of their room. So they just shrugged and took off in the direction of the command center.

It was empty, only the castle emitting a low hum and the holo controls glowing faintly.

They stepped back into one of the big hallways of the castle and decided to see if Shiro was in his room.

They didn’t even get there. Instead they were intercepted by Lance.

“You!” He yelled and pointed at them. Pidge was not bothered. “You’re gonna have to be blindfolded.”

“This isn’t a prisoner exchange, Lance,” they sighed. “You’re just gonna bring me to the kitchen, I assume.”

He looked comically unhappy “Yes, but you’re going to have to at least let me cover your eyes with my hands when we enter or Hunk is gonna be mad.”

“Fine.” They rolled their eyes. They didn’t want to ruin the surprise they all seemed to have so carefully arranged. It was more for the others’ sake than for their own, but that was okay.

 

Actually, Lance didn’t take them to the kitchen but the dining hall, which made a little more sense. Then he made them wait outside for a few more minutes until it was exactly midnight earth time.

“Alright, here we go,” he said and raised his hands. They sighed and let him put them over their face. “Let’s go.”

The door opened and they walked into the room. It would have been eerily quiet but Pidge could hear people breathing and a giggle that sounded like Hunk.

Lance took his hands away from Pidge’s eyes and revealed Keith, Shiro, Hunk, Coran and Allura to them.

“Happy birthday!”

There was a cake in the middle of the table. Pidge couldn’t hold back the smile. It had been a while since someone had baked them a cake.

“Birthday breakfast,” Hunk announced and Lance steered Pidge towards the seat at the head of the table, where Allura usually sat.

“Guys...” Pidge mumbled.

“Don’t get weepy on us,” Shiro said. “You can’t ruin your cake with tears, Hunk and Lance really had trouble getting those ingredients.”

Pidge looked at the green cake and realized that despite the color there wasn’t a smidge of food goo in there. They looked up at Hunk. “You shouldn’t have...”

“Oh no,” he shook his head, “I definitely had to. It’s your birthday. It has to be special.” He sat down to their left, Shiro to their right.

 

It was the best birthday cake they had ever had – especially since they were eating it in space, surrounded by their found family.

 

 

* * *

 

 

After breakfast they all – well, all the paladins – gathered on the huge couch in the communal area. Keith flopped down on it first and Pidge, for once not seemingly propelled by endless, restless energy follow soon after. That prompted Hunk to sit down, too, which of course meant Lance had to lie down across him and Keith.

“You’re such a menace,” Keith said but didn’t seem bothered at all. Instead he tipped his head back and closed his eyes.

Pidge, their head on Keith’s shoulder, looked up at Shiro.

So Shiro settled down next to them.

“Good to know it doesn’t take more than a _look_ from them to finally get you to sit down,” Keith grumbled, but he was smiling.

“What!” Shiro spluttered. “How do you even know? Your eyes were closed!”

Keith grinned. “Intuition.”

“You’re all conspiring against me...”

They all laughed at that and Shiro could feel the laughter in his shoulder where he was leaning against Pidge, could feel it through the fabric of the sofa and in the air. This was contentment.

 

They stayed like that for a while, everyone a little caught up in their own thoughts, but together nonetheless.

Finally, Hunk broke the silence.

“We’re gonna kidnap you later,” he told Pidge.

Pidge groaned. “Ugh, not again.” Shiro looked over and saw the smile playing around their lips.

“Come on, we even cleared it with Allura and everything,” Keith said.

“No more blindfolding though,” Pidge said.

“If that’s what it takes...” Lance mumbled.

 

 

Allura came in only a little while later. She stayed hovering in the doorway, unsure of herself.

“Hey, are you ready for later?” Shiro asked.

“Actually, that’s what I wanted to talk to you all about.” She approached cautiously.

Pidge, who had slid down with their legs thrown over Shiro’s, sat up a little straighter – only a little, but enough to show that they cared about what Allura had to say. Shiro noticed everyone else doing the same.

“What’s up?” Lance asked.

Allura took a deep breath. “I would like you to meet Malin,” she said.

“Are you sure?” Shiro asked immediately.

She sighed and shrugged. “There is no reason to avoid it, and she is anxious to meet you all.”

“She can come to my party,” Pidge graciously offered.

Shiro had to hold back a laugh. To his surprise Allura only nodded and smiled.

“Actually, I was thinking of that, yes. I think she would like that.”

“The more the merrier,” Hunk said.

Shiro was curious, he had to admit. Another Altean, even if she was half-Altean – he consciously didn’t think of her as only half-Altean. No one was only-anything – meant something new. A ray of hope.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

They flew down to the planet an hour before sundown. Hunk and Shiro had gone down early to set up; so that left Pidge to cram into the blue lion with Lance and Keith. Allura and Coran had flown down in a pod to meet Malin.

The sun was already setting when they arrived on the field the boys had picked. At first Pidge couldn’t see them but then they and Keith rounded Blue’s paw and the whole setting spread out in front of them.

The guys had gotten a table from somewhere and dragged logs and boulders over to arrange them around a pile of wood that was clearly designated to become a bonfire soon.

“Keith wanted to hold the party in the desert,” Lance said, “but surprisingly this planet doesn’t have any.”

Keith rolled his eyes. “You know that’s a lie.”

Pidge knowingly patted his arm. “It’s okay, I know Lance hates you and just likes to spread lies.”

“I don’t hate him,” Lance grumbled.

Pidge took Lance’s arm and slung their arm around Keith’s back. Honestly, these two needed to get their shit together.

Hunk came towards them when they were close enough, smiling brightly.

“I hope you like it!”

Pidge had to smiled back. “I already do.”

 

 

There was second damn cake. Pidge stood in front of it and just looked at the turquoise icing for a while. They couldn’t believe that Hunk would do all this, just for them.

Hunk came to stand next to them. “What do you think?”

“Uh, that you’re the best and I don’t know how I deserve this?”

He bumped their shoulders together. “It’s because we love you, duh. I didn’t do all of this alone, either. Everyone helped.”

Pidge looked over their shoulder at the others and had to smile.

The sun was almost touching the horizon now, and Keith was working on getting the bonfire going.

“Here they come!”

Pidge turned towards Shiro’s voice and then they spotted Allura and Coran in the distance, too, walking towards them from the south, flanking a slightly smaller person.

Everyone gathered around Pidge as they waited for them to approach.

It felt like two camps merging, two different people coming together, but Pidge wasn’t afraid, only curious.

“Paladins,” Allura said when she was in front of them. She sounded formal, but strangely hoarse. Quieter than usual. She didn’t clear her throat but when she continued she sounded stronger. “I would like you to meet Malin. Malin, this is Shiro, Keith, Lance, Hunk and Pidge, the Paladins of Voltron.”

Malin had similar features to what Pidge was used to from the Alteans they knew, but she was shorter, a bit broader in the chest. Her ears were still pointed, but not as long.

“Nice to meet you!” Hunk said, while Pidge was still looking at Malin in wonder.

Malin’s face split into a smile and Pidge saw the differences there, too. Lines around her eyes despite her relatively young age that neither Coran not Allura had. It made her even more likeable. “It’s very nice to meet you, too.”

Hunk took her outstretched hands with a little hesitation, holding them for a moment in the greeting that was customary for this planet, as Coran had instructed them earlier.

Shiro followed, then Lance. Pidge and Keith exchanged a glance. Neither of them were too big on physical contact with someone they had only just met.

Finally Pidge stepped forward.

Malin’s hands were a little rough, like she worked with them a lot, and Pidge smiled. Their own hands were the same. Then the touch was gone and Pidge blinked, stepped aside to make room for Keith.

After everyone had greeted Malin and they were all introduced, Lance finally became too impatient.

“Is it cake time now?”

“You just had cake earlier,” Hunk pointed out.

“Yes but not this cake.”

“Well, I say it’s Pidge’s decision.”

As if it was really a hard choice.

The fire was burning bright into the evening now and Pidge turned away from it to look at the others. “Let’s have cake,” they said.

Lance volunteered to cut the cake into pieces and Pidge was almost sad to see the icing ruined, but it was _cake_ – made to be eaten and enjoyed.

They got the first piece and were also the first to claim a spot at the fire.

Keith sat down next, directly to their left.

“Try it,” he said, mouth full, and motioned at the cake with his spork.

Pidge elbowed him into the side but then tried the cake, too.

It was amazing.

 

Everyone settled around the fire, digging into the cake. Allura talked to Malin about the ship and Hunk and Pidge gave the occasional quip about the age of the technology. To them it was all new, breakthroughs their own race wouldn’t get to for another century, but at the same time it was objectively old, and falling apart at the seams.

“I hope you’ll let me see it soon,” Malin said to Allura and then turned to the paladins, resting her chin on her hand. “She hasn’t allowed me to visit yet, which I understand. There is too much history in the castle ship – and too many secrets.”

“It’s mostly old and creepy,” Hunk said and Pidge felt an involuntary shiver creep over their spine.

Lance nodded. “We still think it’s haunted.”

“It _does_ contain alien lifeforms and several semi-sentient robots,” Pidge said.

“I’m gonna assume Voltron is why you haven’t been allowed to visit yet,” Shiro said to Malin and everyone’s attention shifted to the two lions sitting motionless at the edge of their vision. They were like statues, like two monuments looking out into the night, warning and signs of hope at the same time.

“They are the key to saving the universe, after all,” Keith said.

“I disagree,” Hunk said. “I think the people are the key.”

Keith shook his head. “The people of this universe are the door we’re trying to open, but we are the key.”

“So poetic,” Lance said and grinned.

“Who knew Keith had it in him...,” Pidge laughed.

“I do think so, too,” Malin said. “You bring hope to everyone who hears of you. We only got word of rumors, second hand accounts of someone telling a story, a friend of a friend of a friend who had seen a lion. But it’s enough to inspire. We’re all slowly transforming from bystanders and helpless subjects to something else. Something rebellious.”

Allura smiled at her and Pidge, their mouth hanging open slightly after Malin’s speech, felt a warmth that wasn’t at all due to the bonfire. “Maybe I will allow you on the ship after all.”

Malin laughed. “Thank you.”

 

The attention kept shifting between Pidge and Malin, and that’s how Pidge liked it. It gave them the opportunity to observe and to chase their own thoughts without being rude.

Darkness descended over their little celebration.

Fire didn’t burn yellow or red on this planet, but a deep shade of purples and blues.

Pidge leaned against Keith and watched the light from the flames paint ever-changing patterns on Shiro’s face. One second his brow was dark and looming and then his entire face was illuminated, making him look otherworldly and unreal, like he wasn’t quite there. Ethereal.

“We should do this more often,” Lance said and Pidge tore their gaze away from Shiro, refocused on Lance. The purple light of the flames was dancing across his cheeks. “Take a break from all this… From being heroes. And just be normal.”

“I wish we could,” Hunk said.

“I don’t even know what normal is,” Keith mumbled.

“I don’t think I remember normality anymore, either,” Shiro said.

Pidge kicked up their legs. They had taken off their shoes and were letting the flames warm their feet. “Maybe this is our new normal.”

“I hope not,” Hunk mumbled and Pidge had to laugh.

“Sure, it’s out of necessity,” they said. “And I don’t particularly like it, either. But what if we can actually end the war, huh? What if we can get away from the big scale violence and end up with a situation where we’re more of a… firefighter kind of organization than soldiers.”

Allura looked at them in surprise. “You would stay?” she asked.

Pidge sat up a little straighter, gave a shrug. “Maybe?” They let their eyes wander over everyone and settled on the fire again, finding no judgment in the flames. “It’s hard to imagine right now, and my main goal is still to find my dad and Matt, but it’s a fun little fantasy, you know? Saving the universe by day, making new inventions by night.”

“When are you going to sleep?” Shiro asked with a hint of amusement to his voice, prompting Pidge to look up again.

Pidge grinned right back at him. “I won’t.”

They knew that he knew it was a lie. He had seen them sleep. He had seen them vulnerable and beaten down and that was the beauty of it; they all knew each others weaknesses and strengths and would build each other up again and again. Until the fight was done.

“We’ll get there one day,” Lance said. When Pidge looked at him they discovered that he was looking at the stars instead of the flames.

 

 

That night, going to bed didn’t seem dreadful to Pidge for once.

As they lay in their tiny bed in their room in the castle of lions, a spaceship that had become _home_ , somehow, they thought of how one day, the galaxy was going to be free again. And they would have helped.

Pidge turned onto their side and pressed their face into the pillow to hide their smile. From whom, they didn’t know, because there was no one looking, only starlight filtering in through the small window.

Their dreams used to be about the stars. Now they fell asleep thinking about their boys, and how glad they were to be with them again.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> that's it, friends. i hope you liked it. <3  
> i also hope you enjoyed this journey. please come visit me on [twitter](https://twitter.com/luffylaws) or [tumblr](https://luffylaws.tumblr.com) for future adventures


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